


detour (to your new life)

by ArcadeGhostAdventurer



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: (kind of), Basically Desmond lives and he hadn't planned for that, Cabin Fic, Desmond Miles Lives, Emotional Baggage, Fix-It, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pinning, Not Canon Compliant, Shaun Hastings-centric, Shaun faces Emotions, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:54:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28222749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcadeGhostAdventurer/pseuds/ArcadeGhostAdventurer
Summary: They didn't really plan for this. Even when he was oblivious to Minerva's prophecy,  Shaun didn't really expect Desmond to live. Not with the way his mental and physical health had been declining. He didn't expect Rebecca thought otherwise. But he lived. Desmond was here and they had to deal with that.Shaun. More than anyone, Shaun had to deal with that.
Relationships: Shaun Hastings/Desmond Miles
Comments: 98
Kudos: 119





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> What is this hubris? A shaundes fic in theis cursed year of 2020? Yep. Yes, it is. Don't let anyone say that I didn't absolutely give into my personal fancies, locked in the house, scattering words to the wind...
> 
> I plan for this to be a multi chaptered fic and it's almost entirely planned out. However I work a hectic job and sometimes things get unpredictable. I might be talking into an empty waterpipe for all I know right now. Is anyone there?
> 
> Anyway, I'm writing this because I wanted to read this fic and nobody had written it. A shame, really. If there are any other shaundes lovers out there, who just don't know how to let go, hello. Today (21.12) has never happened in this fic. (*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ)

They won.

It didn’t feel like so to Shaun.  
\--

Juno had been released and Desmond had lived.

That caused conflicting emotions Shaun didn’t want to examine much. He wondered if he would have felt more secure in their victory if Desmond had died just like Minerva had prophesied. 

The thought hung above his head like a dark cloud but he just couldn’t dwell on it. 

In all honesty, Shaun didn’t feel like they won anything. Like he won anything. The work hadn’t ended, the worries weren’t eased, the world wasn’t saved. They had simply postponed the apocalypse and somehow, it was all still their problem. One battle done. Onto another battle.

William had gone into business mode the moment they came back to the Temple and found Desmond alive. It had been jarring to see the change in him, both for him and for Rebecca. 

After seeing him pleading Desmond not to go through with this suicide mission, he had felt a certain vindictiveness against Desmond that he had though he left behind. Look idiot, your father loves you. But now that Desmond was alive; the priority had suddenly been packing up everything, erasing their traces and deciding where to go next.

“Shaun, don’t bother with the personal bags. Pack up the electronics. Be compact, take out the memory cards and leave the laptops if you have to.”

He wasn’t going to argue, but he had realized that he suddenly started to trust the Mentor less. Not in a professional sense maybe, but personally.

Juno needed to be tracked down before Abstergo found her or she went to them. All the Animus data they had been collecting needed to be swept and swept again for clues as to where she had been and where she could go. A further memory action had to be planned to fill in the gaps.

Desmond and his almost death had been forgotten in a flash.

Desmond sat in the corner, on a sleeping bag and didn't seem to be there, didn’t seem to be anywhere they could follow him to. He just sat there fingers twitching and muscles jumping and was late to respond to any question, any stimuli directed at him.

Shaun, for maybe the first time, had felt bound by his duties as an assassin, trying to pack cables as Desmond sat there, cradling his burnt arm.

He was struck by how fiercely he wanted to help and mentally paralized by how desperately late he was. And more than anything, he felt a sincere guilt. He was embarrassed to admit it to himself but there were things that were getting harder and harder to deny, now that the apocalypse was miraculously postponed and Desmond remained here.

Shaun had been waiting for Desmond to die. 

Since the day Desmond had first started to show symptoms of the Bleeding Effect, Shaun had been waiting for him to go all the way, like Subject 16 did. Even not knowing what Minerva had told Desmond, he had been able to feel the resignation in the man.

And he did nothing about it. And he used it as an excuse to justify his moronic behaviour to himself because why get close to a man who was resigned and was destined to die.

Now, they only had a couple of hours to pack before Abstergo reached the temple. Desmond sat there, a blanket on his shoulders, burnt hand now hidden somewhere in the folds and Shaun desperately wanted someone to have dressed it.

It wasn’t really that hard to track down what four people were doing at any given time in a small space. He knew no one had tended to the wound.  
\--

Desmond needed more than a few bandages and burn cream. Shaun needed something much stronger than an off-brand breakfast tea.

Rebecca was at the counter, tearing off the plastic from a pack of paper plates with Happy Birthday written on them, “Desmond needs to eat something.”

“Well, what do we have that’s edible?” Shaun mumbled into his weak tea.

“Nothing appetizing.” 

William had disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared, after finding them a safe house in Somewhere-Remote, Massachusetts. Because surely, no one would expect them to return here. And Shaun would never be outwardly disrespectful towards the man who recruited him; still, he couldn’t help but feel tricked once again.

He would have expected Bill to stay with his son he had said he looked for, for years. His son he had been so scared to lose when they were outside the temple, waiting for a sign from Desmond.

And especially in those moments, he had envied Desmond. His father had tried to mold him into a man who could protect himself and his loved ones, change the world for the better. His father had tried to teach him, give him purpose. Desmond running away surely must have been the result of some kind of delusional teenage rebellion.

Right? Right.

Shaun had to lose everything to become an assassin, work his bloody arse off to climb the ladder and then had come this bartender, assassin by blood, integral part of the schemes and machinations to save the world and it had made Shaun’s blood boil to learn that he had pushed it all away once. A chance to be a hero. 

And now he was a hero. How glorious. How bloody brilliant. Upstairs, sitting on his bed with a burnt arm and a deteriorating mind, was the man who saved the world.

“Wicked,” Shaun dumped the tea down the drain, “I’ll go see if I can get him to come down here, it’ll be good for him, innit?” He looked at Rebbecca for confirmation. He didn’t feel like making decisions. He didn’t feel like taking responsibilities. Frankly, he was almost sure neither Rebecca wanted such a thing. They both thought this would be over by now, one way or another. Alas…

“Sure. I mean, being around real people, right?”

Right.  
\--

Shaun knocked on Desmond’s door. When there was no sound from inside, he knocked again. He hoped that Desmond was sleeping but also had very little faith in that that was the truth.

He waited for a couple of minutes, just to be sure. Whenever he needed to interact with Desmond, he just felt like there was a huge hole in his head where normal human interaction protocols should be. To be fair, it was a tad of a weird situation, theirs; he hadn’t known Desmond for all that long. And he knew even less about who he really was.

Yet, it was impossible to treat him like a stranger and too late for a fresh start.

Shaun slowly turned the handle and pushed the door open, “Desmond?”

“Hm?” 

Desmond was sitting on the end of the bed, legs tucked up and chin resting on his knees. His bandaged arm laid beside him.

“I knocked? Uh- Thought you were sleeping.”

“No. I was, I was just sitting here. Thinking. I-” Desmond opened his mouth, then closed it and nodded, “yeah, didn’t hear it, sorry,” he gave another tiny nod at him. 

Shaun stood there at the door like a daft cow checking out a particularly colourful train. Absolutely smashing human interaction.

It was Desmond who broke the silence. “Did something happen?”

“Becs says you should eat something,” brilliant Shaun, throw her under the bus, throw her to the wolves.

Desmond gave a little huf. “Thanks Shaun, I’m really, not really hungry. Not yet at least.”

Here is your chance to prove you’re an actual human being Shaun, come on, don’t bungle it. “Well, you should still eat,” there you go, abso-bloody-lutely bungled it.

“I-”

“At least you should come down. I’m sure the smell of delectable cheese crackers and- Oh- More cheese crackers will get your stomach rumbling right quick.”

That got Desmond laughing, albeit wistfully but it was something, and that made Shaun feel accomplished.

“We’re in that bad shape, are we?”

We. Desmond had always been referring to them as we, from the moment they first saved him from Abstergo. That used to irk Shaun back in the day, now he held onto it. 

He stepped into the room, leaning on the drawers beside the door, “Well, your dear father has disappeared,” and to hell with him, Shaun thought, but didn’t want to voice that opinion, not yet anyway. “We don’t know where to, I’m sure he’ll be in contact soon, once the Abstergo search dies down,” he sighed, “Becs and I can’t go out yet, we’d probably be recognized. You, definitely would be recognized. We can’t ring anyone, someone might track us down. So, conspiracy theorist bunker time continues in full effect. For now. At least we got a wicked house out of it,” he gestured to the granny’s choice, floral-print curtains that covered the windows entirely.

“That’s true,” Desmond nodded, “feels like it’s been years since I’ve been in a real house. What was it, four months?”

“Barely,” Shaun confirmed.

“Barely, yeah,” he went back to his bobble-head toy duty, nodding, “barely four months and three lifetimes. I-”

Shaun waited for him to continue. He waited for him to say something; something about how hard the last couple of months had been, how absolutely messed up it had been to speedrun three lifetimes, how mangled inside of his head was, how much of the world had been on his shoulders, how much he just wanted to shrug it off. Something! 

Something that would tell Shaun that there was still some fight in Desmond, an ounce of self-preservation. He could even do with selfishness, the “I didn’t ask for it”, something.

It just didn’t come.

Shaun bit the bullet. “How is your head?”

Desmond seemed surprised at that, “I- Better than how it was in the temple, if that’s what you mean,” he huffed, “I don’t think it’s any better than how it’s been generally though, you know, lately.”

He sighed. “Come downstairs, eat the cheese crackers so Becs feels like she’s taking care of us. We don’t have coffee, unfortunately, but there is tea and it’s bloody awful; I think it’s past expiration date, but it’s something. It’s,” he shrugged, “it’s something.”

Shaun waited on bated breath as Desmond shuffled on the bed. Slowly, he got up, looked around the room idly, clearly failing to see anything that would require him to stay holed up in there. 

Shaun Hastings’ persuasion powers one; Desmond Miles’ brooding powers zero. 

“Alright.”

“Brilliant. I’m sure you can’t get Becs to start giving a mother hen monologue about the crackers in under fifteen minutes.”

“About how hard it was to find the crackers and oh, how none of us do anything around here?” Desmond smirked, “If I win, I get the remote for the day.”  
\--

Waiting for them downstairs, was a pleasant surprise. Rebecca, in her true resourceful fashion, had found some hard cheese in their food storage and was in the process of crumbling the now heavily aged cheese onto the crackers and melting them in a toaster she had turned sideways.

“Oh this calls for wine.”

“Desmond,” Rebecca rolled her eyes. Shaun walked past them to get a couple of those birthday plates she had unpacked.

“No, really, I’d give an arm for shitty wine right now,” Desmond held up his bandaged arm, “I’d give this one. Shitty arm for shitty wine, doesn’t seem like I’ll be able to use it again anyway.”

Rebecca made a face, “It’s getting worse?”

“Probably, everything’s getting tighter, and to be honest, the burn creams don't seem to be helping. I feel like this might not even be a burn in the, you know,” he waved his good hand, “heat cooks skin sense.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have covered it,” Shaun put three paper plates on the small kitchen table and sat down.

“Oh no, I don’t wanna look at it.”

“You need a doctor,” Rebecca slid some extra cheesy cheese crackers onto their plates, “you needed a doctor like, three days ago.”

“This would be a cool and heroic opportunity to reveal that one of you has a medical doctor license,” Desmond popped a cracker in his mouth, “fuck, it’s like lava.”

Shaun poked a cracker. What if Desmond was right? What if it really wasn’t a regular burn. Sure, it looked like a burn but what did either of them know about proper burn treatments or how to distinguish it from something else? 

What if it was more like a disease? What if it was spreading, consuming his arm from the inside? What could they even do but slap some more cream on it and act like everything was all fine and dandy? They couldn’t even go to a doctor.

We’re doing all we can, Shaun repeated to himself. This is the best we can do, we’re doing all we can.

He stacked up several crackers and showed them in his mouth. “Best I can do is put some more burn cream in your crackers.”

“I don’t think eating it would make it more effective Shaun.”

“No, I meant like, christmas crackers, like,” he tried to gesture a candy-ish shape, “like that, and you pull on either side. Basically a stocking but in globophobic’s nightmare form.”

“You totally made that up,” Rebecca snorted, “so we have a Christmas to be planned?”

“No, I didn’t, it means fear of balloons popping and I don’t think we can really… Deck the halls, in this situation.”

Desmond shrugged. “We never really celebrated Christmas when I was younger, and after I ran away, I mean, it wasn’t really a priority.”

“Well, I could use some Christmas cheer and I’m sure we have several whole-chicken-in-a-cans here,” Rebecca waved her cracker at him.

“Those things are awful,” Desmond made a face.

“Today is literally the eve,” Shaun couldn’t believe they were actually having this conversation. Christmas? Under these circumstances?!

“Well boys, all by itself, yea, canned chicken is a bit slimy and disgusting, but,” she leaned back, “I’m proud to share with you that this house has a fully stocked spice cabinet and whatnot, and I’m planning to use everything that’s still safe to consume.”

“What is the qualification for safe to consume?”

“I have to admit to you guys, I didn’t get you anything,” Desmond said.

Shaun laughed. The absurdity of the situation dawned on him suddenly. Sitting around a tiny rackety kitchen table were three assassins planning a Christmas dinner from canned products. 

They had saved the world, for the time being. Rebbecca looked tired. Desmond looked worse. Shaun purposefully had avoided mirrors for the last three days. And they were planning festivities. 

What was that bloody terrible feeling? Hope? Maybe things were really starting to look up from here.


	2. Chapter 2

The day started marginally bad the moment Shaun woke up on the 25th; but even his pessimistic arse wouldn’t be able to guess just how worse things would get.

He sat up on the couch, thoroughly feeling that he had filled his socialising quota yesterday. And one night of unconsciousness was definitely not enough to recharge him. He would have gone back to sleep, alas, Rebecca was already puttering in the kitchen.

The house had two bedrooms. The smaller one had been appointed to Desmond only. Because after everything, he deserved that surely. 

The other, bigger room housed both Rebecca’s and his personal belongings. And they could have shared. That was how assassin living situations were sometimes. But having been reluctant to leave the electronics, especially the Animus unattended in the living room, they had decided to take shifts. One day in bed, one day on the couch. 

And Shaun was already regretting not setting up rules on the number of cans that could be opened while one was still sleeping on the said couch.

The oven door slammed shut, possibly by accident because Rebecca’s hushed expletives followed the banging noise. Shaun didn’t want to start the day. He wanted more sleep as his Christmas gift. 

He reluctantly reached for his glasses. At least his phone told him that it was already afternoon.

If Shaun had expected to feel better after brushing his teeth and getting out of his pyjamas, well, he didn’t. Once he made it to the kitchen, he was forcibly reminded that they didn’t have any coffee and the tea that they did have was absolutely shit. It was a pity form of refuge but he would have killed for something to occupy his hands.

Three open cans of cooked chicken rested on the counter. The smell was unbelievably disgusting. It coated the back of Shaun’s tongue and thus, dispelled any chance of Shaun having breakfast.

“Will you get the bones off of the chicken? I’m trying to figure out what these are,” Rebecca pointed at the other spice with the plastic bottle in her hand. Some of the powder fell onto the cloud.

“No,” said Shaun, as he dumped the chicken in the glass casserole. He started removing the bones.

Now, Shaun fed himself and that only worked because had low standards. Rebecca was no chef either. But she was organized and most importantly, didn’t get side-tracked thinking about things like the difference between parsley and coriander like Shaun, which made her actually able to follow a recipe.

Desmond probably knew how to operate kitchen appliances, Shaun thought, but neither of them wanted to wake him up. Out loud, they said to each other it was because he probably needed the sleep, that he deserved a rest anyway and patted each other on the back figuratively for not bothering him.

In reality, Shaun knew neither of them wanted to deal with the possibility of Desmond relapsing after four relatively good days. It made him feel disgusting but he couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth about it. He wondered if Rebecca was also thinking about it as she mixed powder after powder into cooking oil in a bowl. He wondered if it made her feel bad as well.

He felt like he needed this dinner. He needed it to go well. They all needed something good.

“Will you turn the oven on to 300-ish something, I got my hands all oily.”

Shaun turned to Rebecca with chicken covered hands.

“Ew. Alright. I’m dumping it all in,” she poured the spiced oil onto the chicken, “mix it while your hands are all nasty.” Rebecca turned on the faucet with her elbow. “And lay the skins on top. Let’s get some crispy bits on these fuckers.”

It was an ordeal, trying to cover cooked chicken in spicy oil while trying to keep the meat intact but Shaun managed it. And promptly ran away from the kitchen.

Sure, he didn’t have to go to the main bathroom to wash his hands, especially considering kitchens normally tended to have a sink. Which, theirs did. Rebecca had used it. But he wanted an excuse to get away for a second and Rebecca could understand that. 

Shaun knew because she didn’t hinder his abrupt and idiotic escape.

He tiptoed to Desmond’s door, precariously keeping his oily hands away from his knit vest. Listened. Nothing. He moved into the bathroom.

It’s good, he thought as he lathered up his hands, quiet is good. He tried to imagine Desmond sleeping soundly. Surely, he must have seen him sleep, while they were in the warehouse, in the temple; somehow, somewhere… He couldn’t recall ever seeing him sleep. All Shaun could remember was him laying in the Animus. 

With that, all his contentment was washed away suddenly. He soaped his hands one more time. Bloody chicken smell stuck to his skin. Everything nauseated him.

Downstairs, Rebecca was already eyeing other cans. “We have beans. One single can of sweet corn. I was thinking we could fry those together. That could be a thing. I don’t know, I’m not thinking about rationing on Christmas. I refuse to,” she paced, opening and closing cupboards like that would make more food items appear. “I mean, someone must contact us soon, right?”

Shaun shrugged. “Can they really sack us for going out for food if we run out?” He thought, then added, “Can we even be sacked?” They had saved the world, after all.

Rebecca shrugged back at him. “I’m not liking this radio silence. Makes me feel like something’s about to go down.”

Shaun sagged. He knew the feeling. He couldn’t relax. He imagined Rebecca wasn’t faring any better either. He mulled over it, “We’re operating on the assumption that our folk can reach us but as far as we know the only person who knows where we are is William.”

“I mean, is there a reason he wouldn’t, like, tell people? Our work is done. The work is done. I’m sure other teams have been notified. Like, we’re just in limbo until, uh- Things get figured out. Right?”

I seemed like Rebecca was trying to convince herself more than him, but Shaun didn’t have the heart to tell her otherwise. Or the will, or the energy to argue. “Well, I’m absolutely chuffed to remind you that I, at least, still have like over forty hours of Animus recordings to go through and you have, well, have whatever you do on your Baby.”

It was a diversion. However, it did result in Rebecca huffing and leaving Shaun alone in the kitchen, which was optimal. It still smelt like cold chicken in there, but at least it was quiet. And it was his kitchen now.

He found his laptop on a shelf that was clearly intended for coffee cups to be artfully displayed. He set himself up on the little table, stretching his charger like a fun little booby trap for anyone that might come in and got to work.

He opened the Animus recordings folder and felt his will to do any work dissipate right then and there. He didn’t know if there would come a time in which he could work on the Animus files and not feel the shame of simply not being a better person. Because a better person surely would have found a way to alleviate at least some of the destruction obtaining all this data wrought on the brain of one laid-back bartender from New York who-

So, more database combing it was. 

He sat there; adding things, fixing things, highlighting things as the oven slowly warmed the kitchen and that warmth settled into his bones. The house started smelling like spices and cooked meat. Rebecca’s keyboard was steadily going click-clack in the living room. Shaun was surprised that that was enough to chase the barren feeling that had been in his chest since he woke up.

Bloody holiday cheer. Who would have thought?

The shrill sound of an alarm clock and a loud crash from upstairs brought him back to the real world. Shaun waited for Desmond to come down, complaining about the alarm he set himself, completely disheveled and hopefully rested. 

That didn’t happen. 

If he had thought about it for two more seconds, he might have gone into the living room. He might have told Rebecca that Desmond was awake and that he had probably thrown his alarm clock across the room. Maybe he would have called out to Desmond first, before making irreversible decisions. But he had been gripped with some kind of unshakeable optimism.

So he went upstairs by himself.

“Desmond?”

Beyond Desmond’s door, waiting in the familiar body, was someone different.

It wasn’t new, the bleeding effect. They had dealt with it before. Long before Desmond too. It came and went, sometimes lightly; Desmond thanking in Italian, recognising architecture he shouldn’t, sometimes ones they hadn’t even seen in the Animus yet.

Sometimes, it was violent. Today, it seemed violent.

Desmond stood in the middle of the room. Half of his burnt arm was unwrapped and he was holding a pen forward like a dagger in his good hand. 

To whomever was in the driving seat, the fact that it was just a pen probably didn’t lessen the deadliness of the item.

Shaun lifted his hands up, placating, took a step towards him. “Desmond?”

Harsh words spilled off of Desmond’s tongue, fluid and foreign. Altair.

Shaun froze. Some things were hard to admit even to himself, therefore he couldn’t ever see himself spilling this one to Desmond either but out of all the assassins they had visited, it was Altair that scared him the most. 

Altair, especially in his youth, had been proud. Arrogant. He had killed without question and it had taken him a lifetime of retribution to feel an ounce of regret.

And it was always him in his youth that gripped Desmond.

It bothered Shaun even more that the two men looked eerily similar, despite being centuries apart. The prideful sneer never stood right on Desmond’s face. 

Altair spoke through Desmond once again.

Shaun promised himself that he wouldn’t move. He wasn’t going to interfere. Like forcing someone having a seizure into a different position, trying to pull someone out of an episode of bleeding effect never went right. Shaun knew this. 

Yet when Desmond’s body moved towards the window and Shaun realized Altair meant to break the glass using Desmond’s free but already very injured arm, he reacted. He just knew it would be a futile action to try to escape through there.

Things happened in such quick succession that later on, Shaun had trouble recalling what happened in which order. He wordlessly lunged forward.

Desmond broke the window, glass slicing through his burnt flesh, only to discover the artful metal bars on the outside. A caged beast in desperation, he charged as well.

Shaun moved to the side, barely in time to avoid the pen. But he wasn’t quick enough to save himself from the incoming shoulder. As Desmond threw him into the drawers and made his escape, Shaun found his last two brain cells. “Rebecca! Rebecca! Desmond!”

He strained to hear the sounds of a scuffle. His back throbbed. He felt like his diaphragm had cramped, if such a thing was even possible. He tried to breathe but a sharp pain in his stomach sent him breathless once more. 

Was Rebecca wearing the bloody headphones? What if she didn’t even hear Desmond coming? Would Altair attack her? For no reason?

What had even triggered it this time? Clock? Desmond had used that clock before.

He screamed in panic as someone bolted into the room. 

Rebecca kneeled beside him. “Are you okay? For fuck’s sake, why did you confront him?” 

“I didn’t.” 

Rebecca gave him a look. “Do you think you broke a rib?”

“I have no frame of reference for that I’m afraid.”

“Where does it hurt?” She tried to unfurl him. Shaun was only able to relax his muscles once he actively realized her efforts.

“Ugh, everywhere.”

Rebecca glared at him.

Shaun didn’t want to argue. “What happened to Desmond?”

“He ran outside. The snow shocked him enough.”

“He’s good?”

Rebecca made a face, “ He’s back to himself. He was puking when I left him, I- He didn’t remember seeing you, or anything really. So I ran here first. You know, in case.”

Shaun tried to right himself. He took a deep breath. His back throbbed in time with his heartbeat but at least his core seemed to have unwound. He slowly leaned back, sitting against the drawer. “He’s not good Becs. His arm-” He made an aborted motion, gesturing at the broken window, the blood... “Everything. It’s-” His voice shook. “It’s not good.”  
\--

Both of them sat at the little rackety table, pushing slightly charred chicken around their plates as Desmond pretended to sleep upstairs.

The smell, Desmond had said, something about the spices. He had kneeled in the thick bed of snow, heaving. I think it’s better if I don’t go back in. The scene bumped around Shaun’s head since then; Desmond on the ground, puking, snow slowly turning red around him.

Shaun had gone back in, opened the windows all over the house as Rebecca had made Desmond sit at the door and checked his arm over. The cuts weren’t worse than whatever the temple key had done to him. By the time Shaun had stopped dissociating by an open window under the guise of I’m making sure the smell dissipates completely, Desmond had already made his escape upstairs.

And the chicken had started to burn.

“Do you think we should go in and patch his window?”

Rebecca’s eyes fleeted to the stairs behind Shaun, “Is it a good idea to just walk into his room like that?”

“Oh come on Rebecca,” Shaun threw his fork down, “You know he’s not sleeping, he had just woken up.”

“I know he’s not sleeping Shaun,” Rebecca threw her hands up. “He literally threw you into the dresser, he could have like, broken your spine or something, he-”

“He was not himself!”

“That’s what I’m talking about, he’s going crazy!”

Shaun sat there with his mouth open. “I’m- Excuse me, are you hearing yourself right now?”

“Shaun-”

“No, no. Are you- He was hooked up to a machine, for three months straight, that made him forcefully live through other people’s memories. Are you telling me that’s not a plausible bloody reason to go mad?”

“Shaun-”

“No , don’t Shaun me,” he leaned over the table, “What is your brilliant idea? Leave him be?”

“What do you want me to do? I cannot code Desmond to be better Shaun.”

He sighed, “I’m not-”

“You’re a historian! I’m a computer- Computer gal! We’re-”

“We’re literally the only people he has right now.”

“Wow, okay,” Rebecca leaned back, folding her arms, “I didn’t know you cared so much about the guy you’ve been berating at every chance for the last three months.”

“I’m feeling guilty, Rebecca.” 

Shaun would have thought admitting to that would make him feel better. Lighter, at least. He felt useless instead. So he felt guilty for shooing away Desmond anytime he had tried to communicate. How bloody noble of him. Because guilt was definitely very useful after sitting on the metaphorical sidelines and saying well, nothing we can do, gotta save the world and making everything worse until it got to a point where-

“I’m scared Shaun.”

Shaun went to argue but Rebecca cut him off, “I’m not scared of him. We could, we could take him down if it came to that.” 

Shaun gave him a look but Rebecca continued, “I’m scared we’re just going to make it worse. We don’t know what’s going on in his head, we don’t know-”

“We don’t know because we’re sitting here like two silly gits and we’re not asking him what the bloody hell is going in his head and he’s not going to tell us because, Becs, I also wouldn’t want to talk about how I’m going fucking nuts with two strangers I got thrown in a house with outside of my own bloody volition.”

Shaun knew he was stage-whispering at this point; which, definitely was not a proper whisper and he hoped it didn’t carry over to definitely-not-sleeping Desmond’s room upstairs. But damn, he hated feeling useless.

“We care about him,” Rebecca’s voice shook.

“And doing an absolutely brilliant job at showing it, innit?”

Rebecca pulled up a knee onto her chair, wrapping her arms around it. “I expected William to turn up here too, like, the next day or something, after he dropped us off,” she whispered. “Like, it’s his son. Then I was like, oh he’s probably busy, but I’m sure he’s going to call or something, right? And now it’s been four days.”

They look at each other. Shaun’s back throbs. The chicken goes uneaten.  
\--

Shaun couldn’t even relish sleeping in the bed, because he tossed and turned and way too soon, Rebecca came to shake him awake.

“William is here.”

On top of it all, Rebecca looked like she spent all night doing whatever she did on her computer instead of sleeping, so that meant Shaun had to be the one who was truly awake and paying attention. Great. She bolted away before he could properly flip her off. 

So, there was nothing else to do but get dressed and fume about giving William Miles a piece of his mind, which he probably wasn’t going to do. Still, it felt good to imagine.

He didn’t expect to open the door and find Desmond coming out into the narrow hall as well. He also looked like he hadn’t slept, which effectively marked Shaun as the only functioning person in the house and he didn’t know how to feel about that.

William, while physically in the house, did not count. 

“Your, uh- Father is here, apparently.” Shaun didn’t know why he was whispering.

“Yeah,” Desmond whispered back. He passed a hand through his short hair. “Guess this is it, huh?”

Shaun could almost feel the cogs in his brain coming to a halt. Was it? Was this it? Internally, he could feel himself deflating, crumbling; yet Shaun stood there, back straight, looking at him. Of course William was here to take Desmond away. This trio had served its purpose.

One battle done. Onto another battle.

Desmond looked away. “I’m sorry about yesterday. I’m-”

“It’s fine,” Shaun answered. Automatic. “It wasn’t you.”

“But it was, wasn’t it?” Desmond gave him a cheerless smile. He opened his mouth, closed it. Then turned away. “Anyway. Let’s get this over with, yeah?”

Shaun followed him downstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year in advance!! A wild 2021 appears! What will it bring? 
> 
> Can you feel that this is going to be a long fic? Because I can. I don't know. I don't control the rate at which plot points resolve themselves. I just sit in front of the computer, something possesses me and my hands start moving. I don't know.
> 
> I know where this is going. I know it. I swear. NO! L i ST eN!!!! I EVEN HAVE A TRELLO BOARD I SWEAR!!


	3. Chapter 3

Shaun didn’t like feeling helpless. The worst part was that he never knew how to shake it off or talk about it, so it just came out as anger. The somehow even worse part was that Rebecca knew this and gave him a wide berth so Shaun couldn’t take it out of her either.

William had taken Desmond away so that an actual medical professional could check out his arm. He had made it very clear that he was going to return him here to stay with them until things settled on the Abstergo’s side.

And he had made an apologetic little face too. As if that was a hardship, living with Desmond. And then it had gotten worse.

“Make sure he doesn’t try to run away again,” William had said as he walked around the living room, inspecting things invisible to anyone but him.

And Shaun had stood there, fuming, befuddled as to how a man could be so blind to what was right in front of him.

“Yes, sure,” Rebbecca had saved the situation before Shaun could say something absolutely right but also quite unadvised. 

“Because I know he will try. You’ve seen how he is. After all this, it’s too much risk.”

“Yes Bill, sure.”

Sometimes thinking was bad. Sometimes, it was good to run on automated responses, generated by a sleep deprived brain.

And after William had gone away with Desmond in tow, Rebecca had made her hasty exit towards the bedroom and away from Shaun. So, he was left to fume all by himself. You’ve seen how he is. How was he? Physically and mentally disabled?! Bloody perfect conditions to run away, really.

It seemed like the more they moved away from the life threatening, world changing events; the more William treated Desmond like a five year-old. At this point, Shaun had to accept that this was how William had always been against his son and frankly, if he was berated every three seconds Shaun would have ran away too. 

What made him truly sad though was seeing Desmond, resignedly acting his part.

It made Shaun depressed, really. And considering he had no pressing work to do, he could direct all his attention to laying on the sofa and trying to come up with a way of actually running away. 

Needless to say, that didn’t help with his mood at all either when he kept finding holes and flaws in his own plans. All he could think about was that William seemed to care more about having an assassin heir than having a son.

They hadn’t told him about the bleeding effect episode. And he hadn’t asked. After seeing Desmond like that, at the temple, all the way back here. He hadn’t asked how he had been.

Shaun sat up, looked around the living room. Remembered how William had done the same thing, analyzing things according to some arbitrary rules he had in his head. At that moment it had made Shaun self conscious, standing there as his just-woken-up self but now, he realized he vindictively did not care what William saw in here. He didn’t care about what bloody conclusions he came to about Desmond, him, Rebecca or anything else. 

They probably weren’t accurate.

He needed to do something. He was going to go nuts. He looked around for something to latch onto. Toolbox. Desmond’s window. Yes. Good. He picked up the measuring tape and went upstairs. 

Desmond’s room was freezing. Of course it was freezing. The wind blew through the completely barren window frame, blowing the ugly, floral-print curtains up high. Shaun closed the door behind him. The draft stopped. The curtains settled. Desmond had spent the entire night here.

And Shaun was a useless man who claimed to care, whined and moaned about how much he cared and then did just about nothing that might actually, you know, prove that he cared. 

Why hadn’t Desmond patched it up? Someone had clearly cleaned up the glass pieces and taken out the remaining shards from the frame. That couldn’t have been Rebecca. Had his arm been troubling him? Then why had he cleaned up the glass? Why hadn’t he asked for help?

Why, for fuck’s sake, hadn’t he asked for help?

For a moment he felt bad for getting in without permission but then again, there was nothing that marked the room specifically as Desmond’s. Devoid of any personal belongings or marks, simply because they had been here for mere days. Simply because they were on the run. In any case, Desmond was a man twice-kidnapped and had no personal belongings to display. He found himself drained.

None of them belonged here, really.

That was no reason to just sit and ruminate in a room that was devoid of the first and foremost function of a room: Staying safe from the elements.

He measured the frame. It was an old, wood frame; single layer of glass fixed in place with brown window putty. Which was lucky, honestly, because there was no way Desmond would be able to break a double-layered, tempered modern window glass without breaking something other than the glass too. He noted his measurements on his phone.

Now came the dreaded part, scouring through the storage room. 

“Storage room” was actually what had probably been designed as the master bedroom of the house but instead of being a habitable space, it was chock-full of various knick knacks, broken electronics and home appliances that the previous inhabitants had left. Surely though, there would be something in there that could be used to patch a window.

He opened the dreaded door into the land of dust and cracked plastic casings and got to searching for something that he could trim and cover the gap with. Maybe some hard cardboard would do.

Instead he found: An old PS1, a microwave (broken), another microwave (old but looking surprisingly intact), a box with several gun parts that were well and thoroughly rusted, a box of table-top games, various clothing in trash bags, a pack of UNO that looked like someone tried to set it on fire…

How could one feel a kinship with a discarded, obsolete music cassette; it’s innards spilling out of its see through casing, the title and the artist long rubbed off? 

Why couldn’t he find one, just one useful thing?! Execute one useful act. Something that would make all of them go ah, yes, something has been fixed at last. Shaun threw the cassette back into its box in frustration. He eyed the cardboard boxes, wondering if he could empty out one of the larger ones. 

That’s how Rebecca found him, squatting down in dust and contemplating mass cardboard box murder.

“You want anything?”

Shaun absolutely did not jump at that, “A window.”

“Sure, I’ll add it to my list.”

Shaun turned around to see Rebecca dressed and ready to go out, “You’re going out?”

She fixed the collar of her jacket, “I know we both love to act like tough shit but we do need food. Also, I’m tired of living without coffee when we’re so close to civilization.”

“And fresh produce. Please. I have forgotten what an egg tastes like.” He got up. “Seriously, though. Can you get something to patch Desmond’s window with?”

“Sure, yeah.” She looked around the room, “Find anything interesting here?”

Shaun clapped his hands, the dust clinged, staining his hands a temporary black. “Depends. Define interesting.” 

They made their way downstairs.  
\--

He heard the van's engine starting and the sound slowly disappearing as he washed off the dust from his hands under the kitchen sink. Rebecca would come back with groceries and something to fix the window with and then they could experience some kind of normalcy. Some productivity. 

He waited for the feeling of accomplishment to set in. It did not. The emptiness of the house was closing down on him. He moved to the living room.

It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t any of their fault. Everything had happened so fast.

He sat down on the couch, suddenly disoriented. Technically, Shaun’s brain could recall the fact that it was only this morning that William had come and taken Desmond. He knew Rebecca had gone out just a moment ago. Still, he couldn’t help but feel so, so lonely.

In another life, another timeline, this could have been all Shaun was left with in the end. Desmond would have died. The world would have been well and truly saved. And there would have been no need for Shaun to do anything. There would just be no need for him. Maybe even no need for assassins.

He wanted to think that him and Rebecca would have stuck together somehow. That he wouldn’t have been left all alone in the aftermath of everything.

Congratulations, you have saved the world. Now you have bills to pay.

Shaun wished he was a man who could cry easily. Surely, a good cry would have fixed his mood right up. At least he would have purged whatever was sitting in his chest, stomping around on his heart. Alas, he couldn’t cry even if he wanted to because his emotions hated him more than he hated them. So all he could do was sit in the living room in a despicable mood and stare at the Animus, haphazardly set up in the corner.

Back to where he started, basically.

I’ve spent time alone, long before I ended up here, Shaun thought. What’s bugging me about it now? I used to prefer this over anything. 

In the end, his mind just circled back to one single thing. Everything had happened so fast. Lucy contacting the Brotherhood about Desmond being kidnapped by Abstergo, breaking Desmond out of Abstergo just to put him back into Animus, Lucy’s death, running away, running away again…

Shaun laid onto the couch and pulled the thin fleece throw over himself. He paused for a moment, then took off his glasses, set them onto the floor and pulled the fleece over his head like a scarf. There. He was properly in a depressive cocoon while no one was around to see it. Brilliant idea to get out of this funk, really.

But truth be told, he didn’t really know if he could truly shake this feeling that easily. There had been no time to process any of it and now they were basically in an on hold until the next order situation. 

Shaun didn’t like that. Bloody hell, Shaun didn’t want that. 

Apparently it only took three months of being on edge with the possibility of apocalypse, one murder and one almost suicide to drain an assassin of his mental resources. Grand. Shaun saw it as his rightful- Well, right to lay in his cocoon and feel bad about himself and do nothing until Rebecca came back and eventually dragged him away from this couch.

His eyes catched on to the Animus again. It just laid there smugly. Ugly thing. Shaun turned around and buried his face into the cushions.  
\--

“Hey!”

Shaun bolted up in panic and prided himself on not screaming out. “Stop doing that woman!” He fumbled for his glasses as the cold air filled into the house. “Did you shop for an army, what is all that?” 

He pulled the fleece around his shoulders and went to stand beside the door as Rebecca brought in groceries. Whatever was inside the bags clinked dangerously similarly to alcohol as she sat them down but even if he was right about that, Shaun wasn’t going to complain. About that at least. “You’re letting all the cold in.”

“You could help.”

“I’m providing moral support.”

Rebecca squinted at him.

He didn’t budge.

“Did we have a microwave? Wait here, I bought glass for the window” She asked as she left to get more bags.

Shaun waited for her to kill the engine and bring in the rectangular package, wrapped in newspaper. “I saw two upstairs, but I am not testing it to see if either of them works.” He closed the door behind her. 

“Pff! I’m sure I can fix a microwave. I got mug-cake mixes!” She took the glass upstairs. “Will you place the groceries?”

“Sure,” Shaun said, looking after her, “Can do that.”

The sense of normalcy he had been searching for was in the groceries all along. Meditation? Bah, humbug! The true nirvana could be reached by placing a 24-pack of eggs one by one into a refrigerator’s egg holding thingy.

And yes, Rebecca had indeed gotten alcohol. A lot of it too.

In the blink of an eye, they had the dinner prepared. The wonders of having things to cook! An absolutely, fantastically unhealthy dinner; but a homemade, comfort dinner nonetheless.

However, all things slowly falling into their place only made the missing pieces more obvious. Namely, the empty chair at their little kitchen table. Well, devoid of a human. In Desmond’s place, sat the microwave Rebecca planned to check over.

Shaun wanted to talk about it. He wanted to scream about it. He didn’t know what kept him unable to open his mouth. They sat in silence and ate their cheeseburgers that were more cheese than anything else.

In the end, it was Rebecca who broke the silence, “I hope they don’t kill each other.”

Shaun gave her a look.

“No, you know what I’m talking about. Bill is probably in his I’m-lecturing-a-middle-schooler mood and Desmond is, well, not in his most stable self. It’s not like he can just, I don’t know, turn off his ears.”

“Who are we more worried about? Desmond or Bill?”

“Well,” Rebecca sputtered, “I’m worried he’s going to decide Desmond would be better off somewhere else. I’m worried whomever he took Desmond to will think he’d be better off somewhere else!”

Shaun leaned back, “We are the only ones who dealt with-”

“The last person whom we know that had bleeding effect lost his Goddamn mind and killed himself, Shaun.”

He gazed into the distance, unseeing, gears turning in his head, “We keep circling the same bloody thing. Think of it this way,” he swayed back on his chair, “He wants to keep Desmond monitored. He trusts us with it, not because he trusts us to actually fix him,” he waved his finger at Rebecca, “but because he trusts us to contain him.”

“Shaun, come on.”

“I know he’s not the brightest pebble on the beach but does Desmond look stupis enough to-”

“That’s not a real saying.”

He pressed on, “Does he look stupid enough to actually plan an escape while Abstergo has everything from his face to his DNA, while he’s slipping in and out of reality?”

Rebecca glared at him but Shaun could see she knew what he was talking about. He pressed on, “Look. I trust William, okay. I trust him with the- The bloody assassining business but this? He doesn’t get it Rebecca.”

She sighed, “I don’t get it. He saw him like that, Shaun. I don’t understand-” She shrugged, deflated.

Shaun did. And made him squirm in a way he couldn’t explain, like he was complicit in William’s crime in being so willfully blind but in the end, he did understand it. “It’s easier to blame than to take the blame.”

“Wow. Okay, philosopher.”

“It is. He can blame the Animus. He can blame Desmond running away, Desmond not being strong enough, Desmond not understanding the core values of the Brotherhood… And it makes assassining easy, probably, when you have to commit brilliantly atrocious crimes and you need to stay vindictive and that makes him a righteous leader,” he shrugged. “Doesn’t make him a good dad though.”

“Yeah,” Rebecca nodded. “Doesn’t really make him a good dad at all.”

Shaun stood up, “I’ll take the first dish-washing duty then. I’ll be on the couch anyway.” He threw their paper plates and used paper napkins into the bin, which now sported a blue trash bag.

Rebecca snorted.  
\--

At first, when he was pulled from the soft and sweet arms of unconsciousness, Shaun thought it was still nighttime and Rebecca was still tinkering on the microwave.

Then he smelled tea.

Poking his head from under the covers, he reached for his glasses. He would have fixed his hair and clothes too, if he cared; but he didn’t and he didn’t think Rebecca would either.

There, in the softly lit kitchen, stood Desmond.

They looked at each other for a silent minute. Shaun nodded, “You’re back.”

What he wanted to say was more along the lines of oh thank God, your emotionally stunted, bloody idiot of a dad brought you back without a broken nose and now I can finally rest easy. Unfortunately he was also very emotionally stunted.

“Yeah. I didn’t mean to- Uh- Wake you up.”

“How’s your arm?” See, Shaun could make small talk about things that mattered.

Desmond gave a little head shake, “It’s kind of like an electrical burn, apparently. It doesn’t seem like it’s anything else. Got painkillers. I also have to mix like two different creams and apply them on. One of them is oxygenated apparently, whatever that means.”

“Well, since you’ve been breathing for the past twenty five years, I think you would understand that oxygen is necessary to-”

“Yeah yeah. Go brush your teeth, I’m heating up cinnamon buns.”

Shaun couldn’t argue with that. Wouldn’t argue with that. He could. But- Oh well. He went upstairs.

He came back to the smell of coffee, cinnamon and oranges. Desmond was leaning against the counter as the coffee dripped into the brew pot, painstakingly peeling an orange with his single working hand. It was a strangely homely sight. 

Desmond shook the orange from the peel to make it come off. Okay, so it was also a little bit of an idiotic sight. But it was still welcome.

He checked the little teapot that was still sitting on the stove to see if it was steeped yet and poured himself a cup. He wanted to thank Desmond. He didn’t drink tea. Neither did Rebecca. There was no reason for him to have made tea other than for Shaun to drink and he wanted to thank him but it just didn’t come out of his bloody mouth. 

He found his laptop, now a permanent fixture in the kitchen and opened it up, setting it onto the table.

“Orange,” Desmond held out the orange segments between Shaun’s face and the booting up laptop screen.

“I just brushed my teeth.” Shaun picked up the pieces from his hand and threw one into his mouth. “Disgusting.” He kept eating. 

Desmond grinned.

It was calm. The coffee machine gurgled in the background as the cinnamon buns turned and turned in the microwave. Shaun clicked away on his laptop.

The microwave beeped.

“Des.” Shaun didn’t lift his head from his work. The microwave kept beeping. “Desmond?”

Desmond stood there, looking around like he was seeing the kitchen for the first time.

Their eyes locked. A long forgotten but still so similar form of Italian spilled out of his tongue.

Shaun slowly stood up. “You’re in Massachusetts, USA. You’re Desmond Miles, the assassin.”

Desmond took a step back. Or more like, Ezio in Desmond’s body took a step back. Shaun could see him thinking, realizing that he didn’t have his hidden blade, analyzing the different environment. He hated it. He hated it all.

“You came back this morning from a doctor’s trip with your dad. You must remember him, you hate your dad. You were heating up cinnamon buns in the microwave.”

Ezio spoke, sharp and accusatory. But Shaun hadn’t been attacked yet and that made him bold.

“You made me tea. Desmond, make a bloody effort to remember, come on,” he reached towards him, “you gave me half of your orange just a damned second ago.” He grabbed Desmond’s wrist, sticky from the orange juices. It was like a switch being flipped.

“Oh fuck. I forgot to give you a tissue for that, right? Uh- I hope you didn’t touch your laptop with those fingers.”

It took Shaun a herculean effort not to slap Desmond right then and there. He didn’t know what kind of faces he was making; but Desmond’s face fell.

“I just spaced out for a moment, right?”

Shaun shook his head. “No.”

“Oh.”

Yeah, that was right. Bloody oh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wanted to make this chapter happen last week, but then everything that happened last week has happened. *makes a vague gesture* A little of a filler, contemplative chapter. Writer is depressed and doesn't like William, what can you do.
> 
> Can you sense that the story is only just starting. Yes, I did not expect things to drag on this much either. 
> 
> If you want a live commentary of my descent into whatever funk I'm in at that moment in time, I have a [Twitter](https://twitter.com/arcadeadvntures). If you wanna make sure I'm still alive but with much less commentary, I also have a [Tumblr](https://arcadeghostadventurer.tumblr.com/).


	4. Chapter 4

Rebecca found them sitting quietly; eating slightly dry, mouth-meltingly hot cinnamon rolls. Shaun had put his plate right on his keyboard. Random letters appeared on the codex file he had open anytime he stabbed his dessert with a fork.

“Uh oh. What happened?”

“Nothing,” Shaun ran his fork through coagulated vanilla sauce.

Desmond shrugged. “Just me being-” He twirled his fork beside his head. “I’m alright though, nothing happened, really.”

“You sure? You’re good?”

“Yep, Becs. It was just a second or two.”

Rebecca walked past Shaun to put a hand on Desmond’s shoulder. “Well, I’m glad you’re back. I know maybe you’d prefer to get away from things for a while but-”

“No. No, really. I-” Desmond patted Rebecca’s hand, “it’s nice to be here. Otherwise it kind of feels like the last three months were a fever dream, you know. It’s nice seeing you guys.” He gave Shaun a slight smile over Rebecca’s arm.

“Aww!” Rebecca gave him a side-hug and made for the coffee machine. “I fixed your window glass by the way.” She poured herself a glass.

Betrayal! It had been his idea! He had been there when the window was broken. He had remembered it while sitting uselessly in the living room. He had gone in and measured it and had crawled among the dusty rubbish in the storage room. 

Sure maybe it had been Rebecca who had bought the glass and installed it, and without telling Shaun too, apparently. 

But it had been his idea. He should have gotten a little bit of the credit but Desmond had already thanked Rebecca. And he had already smiled at Rebecca. And the whole thing was gone and forgotten already so Shaun was just going to sit here and sulk.

“How did the doctor’s visit go?”

I already asked him that, thought Shaun.

“My arm is as okay as it can be under these conditions. When dad reached out to them he apparently exaggerated so much that the doc had thought I might need skin grafts but it’s not that bad.”

Rebecca laughed. Wait, you didn’t tell me that, thought Shaun. 

Desmond continued, “She gave me some more burn creams, heavy duty ones, I guess. And yeah,” he shrugged. “I’m supposed to report if it seems to get worse but for now, it is what it is.”

Rebecca leaned against the counter beside the coffee machine, just like Desmond had minutes ago. It gave Shaun a terrible case of ominous deja-vu. 

“Did Bill send us any messages?”

Desmond turned around in his chair to look at her better, “Not really. He said you guys deserve a rest, for now. Apparently Abstergo raided the temple after us and our guys are trying to figure out what kind of info they have gotten and, well, how much.” 

He got a pensive look on his face, “With Vidic’s death and all, they are scrambling. So we’re hoping that their inner turmoil as they struggle to pick a new leader will keep them off of our trail. Or Juno’s, for that matter. At least for now, hoping she doesn’t go to them first. So, dad’s on that; he is planning on boarding Altair II to avoid being detected and will be keeping watch. And will contact us when things are more clear.” 

“It is so bloody fucking weird to see you be serious. Never do that again.”

That made Desmond laugh and made Shaun feel included. In what? He wouldn’t be able to say if asked.

“Well, “ Rebecca peeked into the microwave for a cinnamon roll of her own, “that means we can focus on our own shit for a while and I’m not going to say no to that. God knows everything we have right now only works at bare minimum, especially the Animus.”

“Becs, come on.”

“Don’t console her, that’s her job.” Shaun threw his plate aside and just felt worse when the floppy paper plate didn’t give him any satisfaction. 

Rebecca glared at him.

“Well,” Desmond threw his head back, “I was wondering when you’d go back to being an asshole but also, I’m glad you’ve relaxed enough to get back on your bullshit.”

Now, Shaun knew he was fucking things up when they could just have a friendly little breakfast in their quaint kitchen; nibbling on some cinnamon buns, Rebecca and Desmond having the first real bean coffee they’ve had in months and Shaun indulging in his loose leaf tea. And logically, he knew he had spent the last however bloody long it had been just wishing for some peace and quiet with the all three of them safe and sound.

But he had no idea how to express any of that at that moment, so he had to resort to pulling pig-tails. Quite harshly. He just wished he also lacked the self-awareness to come to that conclusion because now he just felt bad.

Rebecca took the last two cinnamon buns, topped off her coffee and retreated to the living room, possibly to work on her baby.

Desmond looked at him with an unreadable face. Shaun acted like he was typing. In truth, he was just deleting the random letters created by his fork-stabbings. 

Desmond sighed. Shaun ran out of random letters.

“Go away, Desmond.”

Well. Go away, Desmond did.  
\--

Did sitting in the kitchen all alone while Rebecca and Desmond sat inside and quietly talked make Shaun feel like a sulking child? Yes. Yes, it did.

Did he go inside and try to make nice with them? No. Because- Well, because.

He could hear that they were talking. He couldn’t hear what they were talking though, even when he sat really still and strained and that was just fine and dandy because Shaun didn’t care. 

He sighed and with that breath, the indignancy he had been running on also left him. He knew that he seriously needed to work on this bloody denial thing if he wanted to get anywhere. But self-improvement was hard and the codex files were right in front of him; so, he was going to do that and call it enough. For now.

If he could just stop trying to make out the words being spoken in the other room and focus on his writing.

Soon enough, the thrall of extremely obscure data was able to lure him back to work. If he still felt the weight of being an absolute rubbish of a human being in keeping a civil conversation, well, that wasn’t something you wrote into codex entries.

As much as Shaun would have loved to be a living-breathing-but-not-needing-anything history machine; he got hungry. Understandable. Cinnamon rolls were hardly a full and nutritious breakfast. But most importantly, he could use lunch as his bribing point. This way, he wouldn’t need to apologize.

Though frankly, he didn’t want to analyze why he felt guilty this time when he shooed people away all the time. He listened. Inside was quiet. Quiet quiet. Not even the sound of Rebecca’s keyboard.

Brilliant, Shaun thought, if they are also lazing around in a sugar crash, I can easily lure them in with my lunch schemes.

He got up from his chair. He could do casual. Like, hey guys, you want lunch? Or maybe, I’m starting pasta water, what sauce do you want? He was trying not to think about the fact that he apparently had turned into the kind of person who rehearsed small talk in his head.

He stuck his head through the archway into the living room.

Brilliant, he thought, the fates are out to get me.

Sitting on the couch, Rebecca was carefully examining Desmond’s burnt arm. She seemed to be carefully applying a mixture of creams and whatnot with a paper towel.

Shaun ducked back into the kitchen before he could be spotted because he knew if he had been spotted at that moment, he’d say something cross and nasty just to get on Rebecca’s nerves and berate Desmond because apparently, Shaun Hastings had no emotional regulation capabilities.

He sat back in his chair like a sulky child.

Now that he sat down, his brain was able to remind him that a normal person would have just walked in and said something along the lines of, “How is your arm?” Probably, a normal person, would have asked if Desmond was doing alright, if they needed help or anything else.

But if you were Shaun Hastings, you became jealous of your two colleagues being friends and showed your discontent by not interacting with them and brooding like a chicken, all by yourself.

Why hadn’t it occurred to him that Desmond might need help with his arm? Of course he needed help. How was he supposed to bandage his arm? 

And why would Desmond come to him asking for help? After shooing him away for nothing, at that.

On top of that, was it really surprising that Rebecca and Desmond got along when they were both go-getters and Shaun was- Well, he was just a guy who wrote down historical facts, just in case. And maybe that was the thing that hurt the most. Shaun was just- Different. His work, his disposition...

He snapped down the screen of his laptop maybe with a little too much force. He lifted it a little, peeking through the gap to make sure he hadn’t cracked anything. He slumped. He knew in his heart that his research was important. He wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t. 

But that thought was hard to hold on to, living with a guy who made it out there all by himself since he was 16 and a tech-wiz who could fix and upgrade bloody anything she touched.

At the root of it, he just knew he was a different kind of useful. But it also meant that he was a different kind of, well, everything; so it made sense that he didn’t quite fit in.

It did, right?

And on top of it all, he was still very much hungry with absolutely no appetite.

Breaking his self-beration, Rebecca walked in with a handful of soiled tissues and old gauze, throwing all in the rubbish bin. Then she went straight to the refrigerator, pulling out a carton of milk.

“I’m going to nap upstairs for a couple hours.” She lifted the milk carton up to her mouth. Shaun looked at her, not trying to hide his disgust even a little bit.

“What? I finished it,” she left the empty carton on the counter. “Also, tomorrow is your turn to re-wrap Desmond’s arm. I’m not touching his slimy arm two days in a row.”

Yes.

Desmond walked in, took the empty carton and threw it in the bin, “I can handle it, don’t worry.”

“No!” Rebecca and Shaun were not the kind of people who spoke in unison usually, really. But in hindsight, Shaun was grateful that Rebecca had backed him up because, honestly, how did you tell someone I do want to touch your slimy arm; in fact, I was just sulking here because I didn’t get to touch your slimy arm. Let me help you bloody idiot.

“Wouldn’t it be better if I learned how to do that? What if I wanted to take a shower?”

“First of all, you shouldn’t get that arm wet anyway so we’d probably have to tape a trash bag over your bandage,” Rebecca waved a finger at him. “Second of all, wouldn’t it be better if you healed with the full use of your arm? You know, the arm that lets you do assassin monkey stuff?”

Desmond just sighed and threw some more rubbish left from the breakfast into the bin.

“Anyway,” Rebecca turned away. “I’m going to nap. I’m also going to put on earbuds so if you kill each other or someone tries to kill you, you’re both on your own.” She walked out.

Shaun sat there. They looked at each other. Desmond glanced at the laptop, closed. He waited for Desmond to say something. 

“I can leave if you’re going to work.”

Not something like that though.

“No, no. It’s fine. I’m done for the day, I think.”

“Cool.”

He watched as Desmond turned around and fiddled around with the paper bags on the counter, taking out a couple potatoes and throwing them into the sink. He turned on the water and started washing them with his left hand. He was struggling. Managing, but clearly struggling.

Shaun felt an almost irrepressible need to berate him for touching the temple key with his dominant hand because seriously, what if he had lost that arm completely. Was he up to relearning how to write? What if-

And this was why, this was why Shaun had no friends. This was why Desmond was becoming friends with Rebecca and Shaun was sitting in the kitchen all by himself.

“How are you planning to peel them, if I may ask?”

That is not any better Shaun, his brain screamed three seconds too late, that is not any bloody better!

“Uh- I’m not? I was just going to quarter them and throw them into the oven, you know, pub style.” 

Brilliant. Conversation ended. Truly marvelous Shaun. You have spoken some words that went absolutely nowhere.

Insert yourself. Insert. Yourself.

“Well, we can’t just have roast potatoes. Surely, there must be something that will go with that in the fridge. Rebecca went shopping when you were gone.” He got up, opened the refrigerator door, looked inside but he wasn’t really seeing anything. “That’s when she got the glass for your window. She must have bought some meat. If not maybe eggs? Eggs and potatoes could be a thing. I put the eggs in here myself so I know we have some. I-” Too much, too much! Stop rambling!

“Shaun.”

“Yes.”

“Come slice the potatoes.”

Shaun closed the refrigerator door, “I thought you were doing that.”

“Well, look how successful I am.” Desmond put the knife over one of the potatoes. Without the support of a secondary hand, it just slipped and rolled away with the pressure of the utensil.

They looked at each other and bursted out laughing. 

Desmond closed his hand over his face, “I’m so fucking useless, oh my fucking God,” he said wiping at his eyes.

Now, Shaun knew he was joking. Kind of. Probably. But then again, he knew the feeling. He knew the bloody feeling.

“That’s alright, I suppose. You save the world, I’ll slice the potatoes.”

Desmond smiled at him, “Sounds like a deal.”

They worked in silence for a while. Shaun cut up the potatoes. Desmond took out spices from the cabinet, carefully picking the ones he wanted; then took out a tray, turned on the oven.

“I feel like- and you can absolutely debate me on this but I feel like we’re being kept in the dark deliberately.” Shaun dumped the sliced potatoes into the bowl of spice mix Desmond had prepared. “Don’t get me wrong. I love your dad. God, that sounded wrong.” 

Desmond snorted.

Shaun continued, “But it almost feels like an ‘if they are found, at least they won’t know any future plans’ kind of in the dark. A deliberate in the dark, if you know what I mean.”

“No, I know what you mean,” Desmond nodded slowly, looking into the distance. “You are in the dark. You and Rebecca. I- Well, I don’t think anyone had a plan for me. Toss them onto the tray, will you. Make sure none of them are like, on top of each other.”

Shaun did so while trying to come up with a response to that. Thankfully Desmond continued so Shaun busied himself with placing the tray into the oven.

“He didn’t talk to me about anything. Not that I was expecting him to but yeah. I don’t think he believes I care, anyway. Still, it wasn’t really hard to put two and two together. Especially when he kept talking around me like I wasn’t there. I think he thinks I’m 4 years old. You’d get along with him when he’s like that.”

Shaun balked, “No! No, I wouldn’t! I- I’m offended. I don’t understand- He-” He lifted his hands, asking whatever was up there for some strength, “Was I seeing things or was he actually there when, oh I don’t know, when you were hooked up to an experimental piece of machinery?”

“Shaun-”

“That scrambled up your brain, I might add. Or when- When you were in a bloody coma? Oh, I don’t know, when you saved the world? I’m-” He sputtered.

Desmond gave him a soft look, “No Shaun, I don’t think he gets it.”

“How? How though? How?” He was truly out of words. Out of words and out of steam too.

“He told me I didn’t have a life in an email, you know.”

“Now, I can see that.” Shaun threw the spice bowl under the sink but he made no move to actually clean it.

Desmond turned on the water, “And that’s the thing about him, you know, he’s- Well, he’s been managing the Brotherhood for way too long now. And there isn’t really anyone helping him. Not that people don’t try, but I think he just has a martyr complex. Though that’s a general assassin problem, I guess.” He gave Shaun a slight smile.

He continued, “No, I think the problem is that all that work, all the theories, the plans, the schemes… It just kept him away from normalcy for too long, you know. Maybe he never had it either and I don’t really fault him for that. Not anymore. But he just, he forgot how people live Shaun. He condemns the very life we’re trying to protect and he doesn’t see it. He doesn’t see how hypocritical that is. And it’s alright. I made peace with that, honestly.”

“You’re right,” Shaun said, “that is how people live. Go to work. Pay bills. Save some money to buy useless things. Have a pint at the bar.” 

“Exactly! And that’s alright. That’s normal. That’s-” He shrugged, “That’s life. This entire Brotherhood thing is so that people will be able to live that life, choose that life if that’s what they want. Everything we do loses its meaning the moment we look down upon that.”

“I don’t know who you are when you make sense. Especially philosophically. It’s like a weird, out of body experience.”

Desmond laughed, “Well, I also would have never thought I could get you to slice potatoes for me.”

“For you?” Shaun scoffed. “I did that for me. All I had today was cinnamon buns.”

That didn’t dim Desmond’s smile, however. So Shaun counted the entire ordeal a blinding success.  
\--

They decided not to wake up Rebecca but to save her a plate for when she inevitably woke up to work on Animus.

Or at least that was Desmond’s reasoning. Shaun’s reasons were a little bit more selfish and went more along the lines of I’d like to spend more time with you and while we’re getting along I cannot risk Rebecca coming down here and breaking the spell but he didn’t really voice that. Obviously.

They didn’t even bother with plates and utensils, just put the oven tray on the table on some old tea towels and put the condiments on a paper plate and ate with their hands.

“She thinks she’s onto something and to be fair, I don’t think she’s really off the mark. If she could pull what she’s working on off, that would be a true breakthrough. It’s just-” Desmond shrugged.

“What madness is that woman brewing now?” Shaun popped another chip into his mouth.

“So, the bleeding effect.”

“The bleeding effect.”

Desmond shrugged once more, “She thinks it happens because we need a 100% sync with the, like, the actual owner of the memories. And it’s pushing me out of my own head.”

“Pushing like how?”

“Like literally,” Desmond slumped forward, “Like- Physically. It’s redoing the memory paths in my brain. Making me forget things. Replacing my own memories.”

Shaun thought. It sounded plausible. It sounded scary. So this was what they were talking about this morning. It made sense. Being in Animus did actually teach Desmond things. He had basically learned how to do parkour in three months while lying down still. 

That wouldn’t have happened if the memories didn’t have a physical effect on him. Shaun felt bad for not catching onto that sooner. Still...

“And how can we be sure?” Shaun pushed his glasses up with the back of his hand. 

Desmond seemed to be curling in on himself.

“Desmond? How can you be sure? I mean, sure, I can understand the ancestor memories being more forefront right now but- But how can we know? Like is it permanent? Are you actually losing your memories? Is it like formatting a hard disk or is it like-”

“I got a PET scan.”

“Excuse me?”

“I got a brain tomography when I- When dad and I went to hospital. It’s- It’s not looking good.”

“You didn’t tell me that.” He wiped his hand on a paper napkin. “I asked you about your- You didn’t-”

Desmond gave him a pained smile, “It’s not really your- I mean, it doesn’t really benefit your line of work so-”

“My line of work? My line of-” It really was like that, wasn’t it. The doers, Rebecca and Desmond. And the historian, Shaun Hastings.

Suddenly food didn’t sit right in his stomach.

“Shaun, it’s not- It has nothing to do with you. I mean, who you are. I- Ugh-”

“That’s very cliche. I didn’t think you’d give me the it’s not you, it’s me talk over the chips I made for you but here we are.” He felt his throat constricting.

Desmond gave a little huf, “I thought you’d made them for yourself.”

For a second, it felt like there was an entirely different conversation going on in a parallel plane; and that conversation had nothing to do with potato chips. Shaun cleared his throat, “Well, I made them for us, you bloody moron. I was hungry and you only have one hand.”

That made Desmond laugh but it was a bitter laugh, “It really doesn’t look good Shaun. When I think about things that are about me, my brain, the activity is just not how it’s supposed to be. That’s what they said. It’s not at the level it should be. It’s not in the places it should be.”

They sat in somber silence for a minute. Cogs and wheels were turning in Shaun’s head to no avail.

“What is Becs’ grand plan?”

Desmond rubbed the back of his neck, “Well, it’s not really a grand plan. She thinks, if she can modify the Animus to not need the synchronization, or like, if the person inside the memory can experience it while still being aware of the outside world, she thinks it might counteract that.”

“So not really a solution for you. Brilliant, brilliant.”

“Shaun,” Desmond sighed, “I don’t think-”

“Excuse me? Were you going to say there is no solution? Or that you don’t need a solution? You’re giving up? After everything you’re giving up?” Giving up on the world? On life? On us? That part didn’t make it out of his mouth. Still, Shaun felt left behind.

“Shaun, have you ever thought that maybe- Maybe I shouldn’t be here?”

Shaun had. But it wasn’t the time and place to admit that.

“Minerva thought the temple’s forces would kill me but that didn’t happen. Maybe she underestimated the human body. Maybe she overestimated the temple. It doesn’t matter now. But my arm isn’t healing as it’s supposed to and my brain is scrambled, you said so yourself.” He gave a mirthless laugh.

Shaun bit his tongue.

“The thing is, I won’t be much help in the field; even if I somehow stay both sane and healthy enough, I don’t think dad would ever send me out. I think half of him is scared I’ll actually die this time around and half of him is convinced I’ll run away. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. The thing is, if I can help Becca correct the Animus’ access to memories maybe I can-”

“Rebecca can get into that thing herself if she wants to fix it so much.”

“Shaun-”

“No! No. I’m trying very hard not to shout at you right now, so listen to me carefully. I did not make you potato chips so that you can go and martyr yourself just like your stupid father.”

“Oh, so now they are my chips.”

“They are your bloody chips. You wanted potato chips and you had a single arm- you have a single arm and frankly, I would have been fine with eating cold sliced cheese straight off the little plastic casings they come in but you wanted chips so I made them for you.” 

Desmond put his forehead onto the table, shoulders shaking in hysterics.

Shaun had a point. If he could only remember what that point was, Shaun was going to get to it. It was just slipping out of his grasp right now.

When Desmond lifted his head, there were tears in his eyes.

Shaun felt his own nose stinging. “No. Don’t cry on me. I don’t know what to do with people who cry. I’ll cry myself. You’ll see. It will be very embarrassing all around and will probably summon Rebecca to come laugh at both of us. I’m telling you-”

“I don’t know what else to do Shaun. Even the doctors aren’t sure. I just- At least that would help. It would be something tangible. And if no one else had to deal with this, I’d be glad. That would be enough. I-” 

He rubbed a hand over his face. “I spoke to my mom. Dad got her on the phone. She had like, five minutes only and I just thought really hard all throughout the conversation but I just couldn’t recall her face.” 

Shaun pressed his fingers to his eyes under his glasses. Along with weird shapes, an idea flashed in his head. He sniffed. “This is an entirely experimental idea and it might have been caused by the fact that I now have paprika in my eyes but- Listen- What if we trained your brain to make new memories.”

“New memories?” Desmond looked at him with an unreadable expression.

Shaun rubbed at his eyes, it just made everything worse but the idea was already taking root, “Memories that have nothing to do with your ancestors. We could train you to remember things. We had one guy back in Arizona, he was a remembering things champion or something like that. Maybe we can train your brain to, I don’t know, push the ancestor memories out? Compartmentalize them?”

“Remembering things champion.”

“Yeah, you know, one of those weird fellows that went to competitions where people memorize random decks of cards and stuff like that. He wasn’t born like that. We can learn how.”

“I-” Desmond laughed, “I don’t know those competitions but Shaun- Really? We’ll just sit here and memorize cards and hope it works? I don’t really-”

“Look. Bill decided we’re sidelined anyway. We’re not getting any missions until at least Abstergo’s shit dies down, if we even get anything at all; and frankly, I don’t think that will happen anytime soon. What else do we have to do?”

Desmond poked a potato. “So what, you’re going to abandon your precious codex files and what? Play Where’s Waldo with me?”

“Yes. If it will help, yes.”

“Why?”

Shaun shrugged, “Because I care, I guess.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was hoping to update way sooner than 14 days but then I got depressed, what can you do. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> I had started to get worried that things were moving too slowly. And then I started writing and got worried things were moving too fast. And then I realized there was no winning so I just banged out some words. 
> 
> At least now that Desmond is here to stay, they have no choice but to interact. (Imagine me evilly rubbing my evil hands together.) I want you to keep in mind that they are both really intelligent human beings. Just not- Just not when it comes to genuine human relationships. So you know... That's coming. (*˘︶˘*)
> 
> Also! I officially have over 100K words published on AO3. Celebrashun! ヾ(´〇`)ﾉ♪♪♪


	5. Chapter 5

“Is tomato a fruit or a vegetable?”

“Rookie question, I’m afraid. Biologically the former; the latter when concerning trade agreements.” 

Shaun was trying to read an article on EMDR therapy. It sounded a little like a sham. But they were in possession of a DNA memory stream machine so he really didn’t think they had a leg to stand on. It seemed to be helping people with PTSD and memory issues. It could help Desmond too.

...The trauma causes a disruption of normal adaptive information processing, which results in unprocessed information being dysfunctionally held in memory networks…

He would be able to absorb more information too, if only Desmond stopped bugging him.

“What is the… Smallest unit of memory?”

“However much your brain can hold on to at any given moment.”

Both Desmond and Rebecca snorted.

It didn’t make Desmond relent though. “What is- Ugh. Let me think.”

“You can do that?”

Desmond squinted at him, then nodded from where he lay on the couch, “Alright, I brought that one onto myself.”

While he couldn’t stop himself from sniping at Desmond because, frankly, that was just who he was, mornings like this was what Shaun had been craving since they had came back to Massachusetts. Rebecca was on a laptop that was hooked to Animus, working on fixes. Shaun was researching memory related mental problems. And Desmond was just lazing around, being annoying.

There was absolutely no urgency to do anything and it was marvellous. 

“Okay! What was- Hm. What was the shortest war ever in history?”

“Anglo-Zanzibar war in August 1896.”

“Wait, seriously? You know that?”

Shaun didn’t grace that with an answer. 

“How long did it last?”

“Little more than half an hour, I believe.”

“Do I want to know how?”

“It’s quite boring, I’m afraid.” 

Desmond huffed, “I’ll take your word for it.”

Yes, Shaun thought, you should. 

“What was was the most stupid war?”

“Whatever war I’m waging against your rubbish questions right now.”

Rebecca snickered.

He retorted. “It’s not even a trivia question, Rebecca. Stupidity is subjective.”

Desmond sing-songed from the couch, “Shaun doesn’t know any stupid wars.”

“The Great Emu War. Are you pleased? Does that make you happy?”

“Is ice a rock?”

Shaun put his face into his hands. “Technically, geologically; yes, it is. It’s a rock. It’s a hard mineral formation that is found on the surface of a planet. Which makes it a rock. Yes.”

For two seconds, Shaun was rewarded with blessed silence. Well, apart from the sound of keyboards but that was basically music to his ears. Music of productivity. And the silence of Desmond.

That, of course, lasted until Desmond started giggling out of nowhere. He was laughing so uncontrollably that Shaun thought, Yep, he has well and truly gone crazy right this moment.

“Shaun,” Desmond said through barely contained laughter, “Do you also know many cheerful facts about the hypotenuse?” Then he completely lost it.

Shaun looked at Rebecca and was relieved to see her as puzzled as himself because he had no bloody idea what Desmond was talking about. His hand went to his glasses instinctively, fixing them above his nose, “Well, I wouldn’t call them cheerful facts but-”

That just made Desmond laugh more. Which, in turn, made Shaun more worried about his mental state than anything.

“Oh God,” Desmond wiped his eyes, “I found something you don’t know. For fuck’s sake, I remember the most useless shit ever. Open YouTube, quick?”

“Now?”

Rebecca walked around her table, “I want to see it too.”

“It’s funny, come on. Write- Oh God, wait I need to remember it,” Desmond came running, literally leaping and crouched beside his chair, “Search I’m the very model of a modern major general.”

It turned out, Desmond did, indeed, remember the most useless things. The search brought up the grainy footage of an old musical. Just seeing the thumbnail sent Desmond into a fit of laughter. Shaun clicked on it. 

Between the choirs of what seemed like women in 19th century clothing and men dressed like pirates, a stocky man in military garb holding a Union Jack flag slid down a platform. 

He did a merry little walk that annoyed the shit out of Shaun before starting to sing in a prim sort of way.

“I am the very model of a modern Major-General;  
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral;  
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical  
From Marathon to Waterloo; in order categorical.”

Understandably, Rebecca lost it. Desmond had been down, hyperventilating on the floor since the moment he had seen the thumbnail. 

Shaun was barely holding himself together. He wasn’t going to laugh. He was not going to give Desmond the satisfaction of laughing at his stupid little musical. Needless to say he was only able to resist the urge of laughing for one more verse. He lost it at; with many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

By the time the four and a half minute video was over, he was sure his stomach was clenched permanently and he was never going to be able to sit straight again.

When was the last time he had laughed like this? When was the last time any of them did? This is the first time we’re simply just having fun together, he thought. At least for four and a half minutes, the world was not theirs to save. All three of them, they deserved more moments like this.

He tried to get his breathing back in order, “What in the bloody-” He wheezed. “Why do you even know this?”

Desmond was using his bandaged hand to dab on the tears rolling down his face, “I have no fucking idea. I think I watched the entire musical? How? Where? Fuck if I know but probably on a VHS.”

Rebecca put her hands up. “You officially have the weirdest brain ever. Out of everything to remember, your brain chose this. It’s glorious.” She moved back to her own table.

Desmond’s shoulders were still shaking as he tried to get up from the floor. “Can’t believe my brain is literally a landfill at this moment.”

“Well,” Shaun fixed his slipping glasses, “It was fun. So I wouldn’t say, completely useless. And if I may extrapolate, now I do know one cheerful fact about the square of the hypotenuse.”  
\--

Shaun was against it. So against it. 

“It’s not even memories Shaun,” Rebecca pleaded, “just to see if he can hear us outside of the headset.”

“No.”

“We’ll just load him into the white room and then back out.”

“No.”

“It will not even take five minutes.”

“No.”

“I, for one, love it when mom and dad talk about me like I’m not even here,” Desmond muttered from the couch.

“Oh you are very interested in becoming a guinea pig, aren’t you now.”

“What else is there for me to do?”

Shaun looked between Desmond and Rebecca, incredulous. It had barely been any time and Rebecca wanted to put Desmond back into the Animus? To test new code? Hadn’t Animus been the root of all their problems? Well, Desmond’s problems. He was having a hard time wrapping his head around all of this.

“I had thought we were taking a break from all of this.”

“It’s just the white room Shaun.” Desmond stood up from the couch and walked over. “Log in, see if I can hear anything and log back out.”

Rebecca looked at him expectantly. Desmond looked at him like it was the only logical thing to do. 

Shaun was down two to one. 

“I still don’t like it. In fact, I want it known that I absolutely hate this idea and if anything goes wrong, I will not be helping. I’ll sit here on the sidelines and tell you I told you so.”

Who he was kidding? He was going to stay close and alert so that he could immediately act in case of the slightest issue. Desmond had had a bleed just yesterday morning. But oh, martyrdom was an assassin issue indeed. 

And this, if it worked, wasn’t going to help convince Desmond there were other things he could do and be useful, was it? And if it didn’t work, well, Shaun didn’t know if that would be better or worse.

Rebecca was already starting the Animus. 

“Alright; in three, two, one-”

“Whoa- That’s- No, no, no!”

Panic. Time to panic.

Rebecca started checking her screens. “Desmond? You seem to be alright on the-”

“He’s clearly not alright Rebecca! Pull him out!”

“Get me out of here Becs.” Desmond’s voice was strained.

“Oh! You can hear us!”

“Rebecca!” Shaun’s heart wasn’t going to take it.

“It’s down, it’s down. Alright. He’s out. What went wrong?”

Desmond sat on the floor as soon as he was out of the Animus. His eyes were still closed.

“You seemed like you loaded okay in the Baby’s display, what happened?” Rebecca was frantically typing away on her keyboard.

Shaun crouched beside Desmond. He wanted to comfort him but really, he had no idea where to even start. Desmond lifted his hand as if to say one moment.

“It was- Uh- I have no idea how to explain. One side of me knew I was half lying on the Animus but the other half was standing, you know, in the simulation. It’s so disorientating, I don’t even want to imagine how jumping off of roofs would feel in this state.”

Shaun lifted his eyebrows at Rebecca in a see, I told you so.

She just scowled at him.

“But, well, answer to your question, yes, I could hear you very well. Maybe add a gyroscope next.”

“Oh so you know what a gyroscope is. Very interesting.” Shaun poked at him because, frankly, he was relieved that it was just disorientation. It was hard, seeing Desmond sink to the floor like that but at least it wasn’t anything more serious.

Right?

“Let me-” Desmond moved to get up from the floor. Managed to get half-way up and suddenly fell all on fours.

“Desmond?” Rebecca moved quickly from behind the table and Animus, coming beside Desmond.

Shaun smelled danger but it was too late.

“Becs no.”

Desmond lifted his head, looking around but it was clearly someone else analyzing the room. 

“Desmond please-” Rebecca reached down to touch his shoulder but Desmond moved out of her reach. 

His eyes caught the door.

At this point Shaun thought he’d know not to interfere, let the bleed run its course. It wasn’t like whomever bled into Desmond, he assumed it was Altair again, would go and hurt Desmond. Or well, themselves. But Shaun was an idiot and for some reason, at that moment, it was more important to him that Desmond didn’t go outside, where it was minus something something Fahrenheit.

Desmond got up to his feet at the same time with Shaun. He moved for the door. Shaun moved in front of him. Why or how he thought he’d be able to stop Desmond or Altair or any other trained assassin? He didn’t know. Well, frankly, if he had bloody thought about it, maybe he wouldn’t have done it in the first place.

Their eyes locked. Shaun was evaluated and tagged as an enemy.

“No!” Rebecca moved but she was not quick enough.

Desmond’s right fist collided with Shaun’s jaw.

“Fuck! Shit! Oh fuck!”

If he could talk, Shaun would have said something like, Oh the pain shocked you out of it, huh? Well, that teaches you not to use your bandaged hand from now on. If he could talk, of course.

The pain that had exploded through his head and neck, however, completely debilitated him. He could taste blood. He hoped it was just a busted lip or a bitten tongue because he really didn’t want to deal with a fallen or broken tooth right now. 

Maybe it was a bad thing that he was so disoriented from the punch that he couldn’t really assess that right now but oh well. He couldn’t really think beyond the pain still throbbing wildly in his jaw.

He hoped that, at least, wasn’t broken.

Blood collecting in his mouth was becoming too much and too disgusting to hold onto. He blindly reached for a cup he hoped was his and spit inside.

“Oh fuck, Shaun-” Desmond’s voice was trembling. 

“Well,” Shaun wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, “I told you so.”  
\--

The next couple of days were… Hard.

Technically, Desmond didn’t lock himself into his room. But that was only because there wasn’t really a key to lock the door with. He politely lived around Shaun and Rebecca and avoided them like the plague.

Which made Shaun even more vindictive against Rebecca and Rebecca more defensive against Shaun. They fought. A little. Maybe. It might have been fuelled by some alcohol as well.

“I had told you so, Rebecca. You knew how bad the bleeding effect had gotten. You knew the spacing-outs, you knew the nightmares-”

“And I am trying to fix it the only way I know how, Shaun! The Animus helped him when he was in a coma, it could help again.”

“By helping if you mean simply keeping alive, then I don’t think we need your Baby for that.” He sneered. It made his jaw throb where it had bloomed a mad purple. The pain just made Shaun more angry.

“You-”

“You knew about the brain scan results! How can you not predict that inducing a simulation could-”

“Wait, what the fuck? What brain scans?”

Oh yeah. Desmond hadn’t told Rebecca about those, apparently. And thinking back, yeah, Desmond had never really told Shaun that Rebecca had a solution for him specifically. He just said that Rebecca was working on something. 

So now Rebecca was feeling guilty and angry. Shaun was feeling guilty and angry. But anger was secondary and it fizzled out and died way too fast. In the end, Shaun was left with the fear that he was too late. They were too late and Desmond was too far gone and had apparently given up on himself.

Shaun threw himself into his research. Many of the things he found didn’t give him much hope, either. 

The memories taking up space in Desmond’s head weren’t created by him to distance himself from his own person but he couldn’t really rule out the fact that Desmond not having the best childhood might have accelerated the memory replacement.

Split personalities, dissociation, forgetfulness… Shaun hunched on his laptop, reading about early childhood traumas and hating William. 

If Desmond didn’t have much that he deemed worthy of remembrance, it must have been easy for the old memories to slip and Animus induced ones to take up their place. Even worse, if Desmond had been actively trying to forget his early life, which, running away and all made this theory quite plausible, his brain must have been the perfect place for Altair and Ezio to take root in. 

...Treatment is often difficult and refractory. Some clinicians speculate that this could be due to a delay in diagnosis by which point symptoms tend to be constant and less responsive to treatment…

Still, it wasn’t impossible. Processing and compartmentalizing memories were important, it seemed. Shaun made charts, chose topics. This he could do. Push Desmond to think about how and where Altair, Ezio and him separated. Why Connor wasn’t as dominant. How it felt to be in the Animus? How it felt not to be in the Animus?

Creating new memories, grounding and memory exercises. Meditation? Maybe. He was willing to try anything and everything.

It was just that they needed to act and they needed to act fast. The only issue was that Desmond was avoiding him. 

Shaun caught him getting a mug of coffee at around 1AM. Desmond gave him a tight smile and slipped from beside him before he could say anything.

He thought of screaming after him. Calling him back down. Swearing at him, just to get a raise out of him. 

In the end, Shaun just sat in the kitchen and cracked open one of the many bottles of liquor Rebecca had purchased on her one and only supply run. Soon, the woman herself joined him too. And not much later, they were both thoroughly smashed. Wonders of mother Russia.

“I cannot believe you have literally dropped codex to do this,” Rebecca was going through the research he did for Desmond’s condition. “In all the times I’ve known you, I never saw you just- Just stop working.”

“It’s working.”

“No, it’s fucking not.” Rebecca scrolled.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t really working, not exactly in the sense Rebecca mentioned. “Well,” Shaun swirled last of the clear liquid in his cup before tossing it back, “we all break our own rules at some point somewhere, right?”

Rebecca snapped down the laptop so hard it made Shaun jump.

“Oh God.”

“What?”

“Oh my fucking- You like him.”

“Rebecca.”

“Like… Like like him.”

Shaun put his head down on the table. At least he was already thoroughly flushed from the alcohol so Rebecca wouldn’t really see him blushing like a sodding maiden. 

“I cannot believe I haven’t figured it out sooner. Oh my fucking- Are you planning to tell him?”

He lifted his head up to see Rebecca looking much more attentively than he expected. “How are you so sober suddenly? I- No, Rebecca. I’m not planning to do anything. I’m- How can I-” He slumped. 

“Aww, don’t be like that Shaun.”

“Don’t coo at my suffering, woman.”

Rebecca looked at him, humor gone and Shaun knew she knew. Hope. It was so dangerous for people like them, who lived day by day, jumped into danger head-first. Desmond was the prime example of how things could go so wrong in such little time.

Yet, the very human habit of hope…

“I don’t know what to do Rebecca. Look at the state of him. I can’t help but feel like I failed him. To say that I have- I have feelings for him- I just-” He shrugged and hoped she wouldn’t see that his eyes were getting a little misty. “It feels selfish, you know.”

It did. It felt so selfish. Part of him wanted to forge Desmond a premium fake passport, hand it to him and tell him to run away. To never look back.

The other side of him constantly questioned if he was trying to help him just to keep Desmond to himself.

Rebecca squinted at him.

“What now?”

“I wish I could say that getting punched made you look rugged and cool or something but you really need to ice that. Before, you know, before you look like you got the mumps or something.”

Shaun threw her the lid of the vodka bottle. So that was her way of saying alright, I approve it.  
\--

New Year’s Eve was the worst day ever and Shaun couldn’t wait for it to be over. Rebecca was quiet behind her screens, laptop in her lap. Shaun was just looking at his files and scowling. He had given up on wearing proper clothes too. He was in pajama pants and a sweater, looking every inch as slobby as he felt.

Desmond was still holed up upstairs.

Everything reminded Shaun of the failed Christmas celebration. They ate junk food all day. Neither he or Rebecca tried to cook anything. He sat in front of laptop until it was an acceptable time to claim to go to sleep.

“I’ll stay here,” Rebecca said, from behind her screens, “You-” She waved towards upstairs. “You take the bed.”

Shaun didn’t know if it was his day or not, honestly. But he wasn’t going to argue. He didn’t feel like talking.

He did go upstairs but it wasn’t like he was able to sleep once he was in the bed anyway. He kept tossing and turning for God knew how long. He kept thinking about his talk with Rebecca. About his research. Most of all, he thought about Desmond.

His feelings aside, this really wasn’t sustainable. Shaun decided at that moment that he had his fill of this hide and seek. Desmond was a stubborn arse and he could grit his teeth against second degree burns and use his sneaky assassin skills to avoid them all he wanted. Shaun was going to go and find him. 

He threw the covers aside. He was going to find him and he was going to give him a piece of his mind. Kindly. But firmly.

He tiptoed out and leaned against Desmond’s door, listening. Quiet. It was all so similar to that first day. But this time his head was working in order, thank you very much. He knocked. No answer.

“Desmond?” He knocked harder. Still, no answer. 

Cold wind from the bottom of the door chilled his feet. He opened the door, puzzled. Not only the window was open but somehow the metal bars were removed and resting against the wall inside.

He didn’t run away, Shaun thought. That’s ridiculous. He couldn’t have. He has nothing. He doesn’t even have a coat. I’ll find him and I’ll kill him if he actually ran away. Not now, not after-

He looked around from the open window, trying to see where the snow was disturbed. Movement above caught his attention. Indeed, two feet were dangling above him. On the roof, was probably Desmond.

Shaun grudgingly went back to his room to wear a sweater and take a blanket over his shoulders. Grumbling, he made his way downstairs and wore his boots. Rebecca was sleeping already, so he took the keys and quietly slipped outside.

Once outside, however, he started shouting. “You absolute fig jam on toast! Arsehole! Come down!”

He turned around the house, walking towards the side of the house where Desmond was dangling.

“Shaun-”

“Come down!”

“Shaun-”

“Okay, you chose this. I’m coming up there.” Shaun was bone-tired and full of angry, nervous energy at the same time. He tied his blanket around his shoulders and reached for the first floor windows’ bars, carefully climbing up. He might have been out of practice but he was an assassin for fuck’s sake. Also theirs was a tiny little house with many bars and beams to hold onto but no need to downplay achievements like that.

Under the panicked gaze of Desmond, he made it up there and sat beside him. Once there, however, he had no idea what to say. 

They sat there in silence.

“I didn’t come up here to-” Desmond shrugged. “It helps. The cold, I mean. It- It helps. Keeps me awake.”

Something heavy sat on his chest. He couldn’t find the appropriate words to say what he felt. He didn’t even know what he felt. Silence continued.

Desmond spoke quietly, “Do you blame me for her death?”

Shaun thought. Did he blame Desmond for Lucy’s death? Back then, yes. He still remembered telling William, look, maybe your son is the one who’s working with Abstergo. But now? “No,” he said.

“I do.” Desmond kept looking ahead, “I still don’t know if she had to die. More than that, I-” He looked down, “I don’t think that should have been my decision to make. I think about that still.”

Were they close? Shaun couldn’t remember. But maybe there had been something more between them. After all, it had been Lucy who broke Desmond out of Abstergo. Regardless of her motivations, maybe there had been something. Shaun didn’t know how he felt about that.

“Don’t berate yourself Desmond.”

He shook his head, “I just- If maybe I was a little bit tougher-”

“No.” Shaun hadn’t expected his voice to come out so resolute but this whole self-deprecation business was truly starting to weigh down on him. “You did what you could. We did what we could. Yes, maybe you could have resisted killing Lucy. Maybe if we took our jobs more seriously, you’d have less brain damage today. Maybe if your father hadn’t been a total fuckbucket at parenting, you wouldn’t have had to go through everything you had. But it all just- It all already happened.” 

He sighed. His condensed breath swirled in the cold air. He spoke softly, “The only way from here is forward. There is nothing else we can do. So, don’t berate yourself. But if you- If you want to talk, I’m- We’re both here.”

Desmond gave a quiet huff, “You really care, don’t you. Like- The entire asshole thing is an act-”

“No. No, my pessimistic outlook simply protects me from disappointment in the hands of square brained folk, like yourself-”

“I’m sorry Shaun.”

That was abrupt. He turned around to see Desmond looking at his purpling jaw. Desmond reached out.

Please touch me, thought Shaun. Please do something because I can’t seem to. If you touch me, I’ll have an excuse to touch you too.

Desmond dropped his hand back into his lap.

Shaun sighed, “I’m not going to tell you it’s alright. It’s not alright. But really, Desmond, nothing is. It’s not alright that you’re in this state. It’s not- You know, it’s completely befuddling just how solid your right hook is with the amount of lying around you do.”

Desmond gave a mirthless laugh.

“How is your- Wait, how did you even come up here?”

“Oh,” Desmond looked down at his palms, “Well, my palm is not that bad, actually, it- Uh, seems to be healing faster than the rest.”

“True, yes. The fastest healing tissue is found in the eyes and inside of the mouth, namely, the epithelial tissue. A close second is palmar tissue, that’s expected but still-”

“Why do you even know that?”

“Well, I-” Shaun made a general gesture towards his arm. “I researched it obviously. I wasn’t born with all this knowledge.”

“I can’t-” Desmond hung his head once again. He laughed, “Who are you and what have you done to Shaun Hastings?”

“Oh, sod off!”

“I’ll have you know he was a valuable member of the Brotherhood, you must have been really good if you had been able to take him down.”

Shaun was glad it was very cold and very dark so that he had not one but two covers for his reddening face, “Oh- Was he, now?”

“Mhm. I saw him climb a really short townhouse once. Cleaned it in one go.”

He couldn’t help laughing, “Fuck you, you- You misshappen dino nugget!”

Desmond just laughed lauder. Shaun didn’t know what time it was but maybe it was the cold, the relief and the sleeplessness all mingling in his head, clouding up his brain. Desmond’s laugh just felt intoxicating.

“I told you I care about you!”

“You also called me a moron.”

“Lovingly!”

That was an admission of some kind, wasn’t it? Did it count when said in between jokes? Under the cold dark night with no witnesses? Shaun hoped so. But he wasn’t holding his breath.

Feelings didn’t come to him naturally. He knew this. Emotions came to him kicking and screaming around the walls of his brain and every single time they planned a siege, Shaun fortified his fortress. 

It was a good strategy for a man who lived life running, hiding and not knowing what might happen tomorrow or who he might lose this time around. 

It was not a good strategy for a man trying to tell and hopefully show his feelings to another man whom he could cautiously call a friend only recently.

“Alright,” Desmond nodded, still smiling. “Alright.”

Shaun nodded as if they had come to an agreement. Really, he had no trouble accepting his emotions. He knew they were there. But that didn’t mean he didn’t live around them, careful not to engage. So in the end, he just found himself hoping they did come to him a bit more easily.

How did you say, “Hey! It turns out life or death experiences do bring people closer and I think I have feelings for you. You’ll have to be patient with me though because I have no bloody idea what I’m doing.”

You just didn’t. You sat on a cold and snowy roof there and gazed longingly like a git instead.

They sat in silence. It didn’t feel like they were looking for anything in each other’s faces. Just looking. Just staring because they could. Shaun wanted to ask, Do you feel it too? Please do something. Say something. I don’t know how to read people.

A sudden bang snapped them out of their reverie. 

Desmond darted towards him, “Brace yourself!” He pulled them both clean off the roof and onto the thick snow. Another bang. They rolled with the fall.

Was it a gunshot? Had Abstergo found them? Shaun wasn’t a true fighter but he did keep his blade on him, as they all did and bloody fucking Jesus he was not giving up Desmond without a fight. 

“Oh.”

“What? What?” Shaun whispered, then he turned towards the treeline to see what Desmond was looking at.

Glittering lights covered the sky. Reds, whites and greens. In another bang, a yellow firework shot through the sky and exploded into countless little stars.

“Oh.”

“I had forgotten,” Desmond whispered.

“Yeah. Me too.”

They stood there, leaning against each other, shivering and watched the extravagant show happening somewhere in the distance.

“Huh. Happy New Year.”

Shaun couldn’t help but laugh, heart still beating overtime in his chest. Desmond smiled at him.

“Happy New Year.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am begging you to watch the excerpt from that musical [Right Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlTisI_HSgw&ab_channel=franz39). I have been going, _Yes, yes! He is a major generaaaal!!_ and snickering to myself at home since I saw it.
> 
> This fic will end up being a bit longer than I have envisioned. I was hoping to tie it up around 25K but as you can see we're close to that mark and at the same time, nowhere close to the ending. So I'm hoping you'll all be sticking around for that because as you can see Shaun and I are having artistic differences as to when is the appopriate time to tell a man you might have feelings for him. Not too long though. Not too long.
> 
> On that note, I would like to thank everyone commenting. I genuinely didn't expect people to actually still be invested in the story of these two emotionally constipated idiots after so many years. I started writing this story because... Well, I wanted to since I was a Small Vidigame Bean and now I can. The reason why I answer comments when I post a new chapter is because I just log on and read them when I feel stuck. So thank you so much. 
> 
> Am I rambling? Do you see how these chapters get so long. It's because I'm rambling.


	6. Chapter 6

“You watched fireworks?! There were fireworks and you didn’t wake me up? Come on! Why?!”

We also jumped off the roof fearing for our lives and rolled in the snow and almost froze our arses off when the said snow started seeping in, Shaun thought. But he didn’t tell Rebecca that part. It was nice to gloat, after all. 

Neither him nor Desmond would be able to set off more fireworks for Rebecca, so instead they made pancakes and mixed rum into the maple syrup. 

“Did you kiss?” Rebecca whispered the moment Desmond left the kitchen.

“No! What- No! Why?”  
“It’s tradition!”

“Are you mad? Why would I-” Shaun glanced towards the kitchen entrance. “He’ll be back any second, shush!” And then he would have to explain why he had exchanged his head for a perfectly ripe, red tomato. He could already feel the heat in his cheeks.

“He’s looking at you like you kissed.”

“He’s not looking at me! You are a mad woman.”

Well, Desmond was looking at him. But they all were looking at each other. That was a bit difficult to avoid when three people lived in a house that they couldn’t really leave. But was Desmond looking at him like that? When he was in joggers and a ratty sweater? That wasn’t really… Logical. Was it? 

Desmond came back with his hoodie worn on a single arm. Poured himself some coffee and sat back down. 

Was he looking? He hadn’t been looking when Shaun had been wearing actual, respectable human apparel and was generally being a useful assassin. He hadn’t been, right? So there was no way he was looking now that they were constantly lazing around in pyjamas. But that was pointless to think about because he wasn’t looking anyway. Right?

“Was there an egg shell or something?”

“What?” Shaun whipped his head up to see Desmond, indeed, looking.

“You’re making a face,” Desmond said with a slight smile.

Rebecca slurped her coffee loudly. Mad woman. 

“No. No, egg shell, I just-” Shaun waved his cup around. “Just spaced out, I think.”

It was quiet now that they were done eating. Shaun was trying not to think about anything too incriminating that would show up on his face.

“We should get actual forks,” said Desmond as he pushed around a broken plastic fork prong on his paper plate, “and actual plates.”

“Before that, we should rebandage your arm,” said Shaun, drinking the last dregs of his tea.

“Those two things are not even related.” Desmond sighed. “Well, I’ll go bring down-”

“Why don’t you guys go upstairs?”  
Rebecca no.

“What’s wrong with our spacious living room?” 

She slurped her coffee, not looking at Shaun in a way that felt most deliberate, “Well, I don’t want you bickering there, I’m going to work.”

“Kitchen?”

“It’s dirty here.”

“I mean, we’ll have to clean it up at some point anyway.” Desmond piped in.

Look, Shaun wanted to say, no one wants to go upstairs. Please stop bringing up the bloody upstairs.

“Well,” Rebecca sputtered, “I don’t want you banging pots and pans in here either. Also,” she added like she had gotten a brilliant idea, “no one should clean up on New Year’s Day.”

“Alright,” Desmond put up his hands. “Alright, we’ll leave you to yourself.”

And all that was left to Shaun was to follow him upstairs with a growing sense of dread. You can do this, he repeated in his head, you can manage to not be an arsehole and manage not to blurt out something stupid. People do it everyday. Just don’t think about the fact that you’re alone in a room. A room without a table and a chair. So you’ll have to sit on the bed. Yes, don’t think about that.

Shaun was not doing a great job of not thinking about that.

“You know you don’t have to do this right?” Desmond said as he opened the door. “Like, it doesn’t look very good once the bandages come off. To be fair, it looks kind of disgusting. And horrifying. I don’t think it changed much in the last two days. I could manage to do it. I mean, it’s my arm. I’ve patched up my own shit before. I mean, dad always said-”

“Oh shut your gob!”

The thing was, Shaun had this thing, right? This thing that always got him into trouble. But also got him out of trouble so who knew. But the thing was that now that Desmond was trying to dissuade him from patching his arm, he had to do it. 

For this one moment, he was so glad his brain was just wired to take on any challenge because he really had no idea what he’d do with himself otherwise. He would have done it regardless but he would have felt weird, touching Desmond out of nowhere. Though maybe he should have told Desmond some of this reasoning because he was just standing there and he was looking quite uncomfortable indeed.

Oh yeah, that was because Shaun had told him to shut up. Mid-sentence. 

He needed some serious upgrades to his human relations skills.

He rubbed a hand over his face, “Desmond. Look. I- Uh-” He placed his hands on his hips, standing at the door. Which was still open by the way. He kicked it shut. 

Desmond was still standing.

Suddenly, in a once in a million moment of clarity, Shaun remembered their conversation from last night. “I meant that lovingly as well.”

That made Desmond laugh, albeit it was more a quiet huff but still, that was a mission accomplished for Shaun.

“You still don’t have to do-”

“Oh for fuck’s sake! Go sit. Where is your stuff?”

It wasn’t to say Shaun’s heart wasn’t in his throat as he slowly unwound the old bandages but he didn’t know if that was because of the wound or their physical closeness. In any case, he thought he did a brilliant job of hiding his nerves.

The gauze was stuck in places, fused with the old and newly formed skin. Shaun sprayed those parts with the antiseptic to help lift the bandages but it was apparent that the tugging was hurting Desmond still. Distraction, he thought, if he could just-

“What wounds were you talking about when you said oh I had to patch myself up-” He mimicked Desmond’s nonchalance.

“Hmm,” Desmond chewed his lips. “Results of bar fights, mostly. Happens when you’re the bartender, nothing too exciting. But yeah, dad was always big on do-it-yourself-ifying anything.” He shrugged, then winced when it pulled on his wounds. 

Shaun glared at him for messing his work.

“To be fair, they worked? His lessons, I mean. Though, maybe not in the way he’d hope they would.”

“Do-it-yourself-ify,” Shaun shook his head as he pulled off the gauze. “Alright now, uh, now we re-do that. Yes.”

It was an interesting experience, gently holding Desmond’s hand as he applied a mix of creams that he could only hope were actually helping. Inside of his palm was indeed healing much better. They argued about the quantity of cream Shaun was slathering on his arm but really, he just didn’t want the gauze to stick like it had again. 

Out of nowhere, Desmond took a huge dollop of the cream and started spreading it on his still very much bruised face. Shaun was glad his first instinct when surprised was to go very still like a spooked chicken instead of squealing what are you doing?

But frankly, there was a limited amount of human exposure Shaun could take and he was absolutely nearing the bloody end of his tolerance before he spontaneously combusted. “Hey! That’s yours! Put it back!”

“It’s anti-inflammatory Shaun, it will help.”

He sputtered, “But- I- I put it there so that your-” He shook the gauze indignantly, “your bandages don’t stick to your God-awful crispy bits.”

“And you put too much, I’m sharing.”

“I put just enough.”

“Shh. Sharing is caring.”

Shaun opened his mouth but Desmond pushed it closed by his chin and kept spreading the cream onto his face. It was weirdly intimate. Was Desmond aware of that? Or was he just extremely dense?

Shaun didn’t want to entertain the idea that Desmond was toying with him, knowing that Shaun was into him. So, dense it was. He wouldn’t be surprised, really.

At least Desmond hadn’t really been offended by the crispy bits comment. That was some kind of progress, right? It would have to do until Shaun found better ways to articulate his frustrations.

Which would hopefully be soon enough because apparently Desmond was on a quest to add to his frustrations by any means necessary. 

He was looking down onto the twenty cards that Shaun had painstakingly printed and cut out, ten pairs of random words for him to memorize. However, Shaun was now learning that he had a nasty little habit of sticking his tongue out as he concentrated. It poked out, pink and wet, playing with the indent of the cut on the side of his lip. Desmond clearly didn’t know he was doing it and he also didn’t know what it did to Shaun.

So, dense indeed.

Sitting on the bed cross-legged, hoodie still worn on one arm, he looked a cozy sight. And Shaun was having a hard time not snapping at him to hurry up already. It was frustrating. Getting closer was not an option but he didn’t want to push Desmond away. Not really. Not anymore.

So he sat suffering in silence. It’s for science, he told himself. Science and Desmond’s mental health.

I hope I don’t lose mine as he gains his, though.

The alarm went off. “Alright,” Shaun said, as he flipped the cards around. “Now, start revealing.”

He was good at it. Bloody jerk. Of course he had to be good at it.

“It’s not my short term memory that is affected, Shaun.” Desmond grumbled as he laid out the second batch of more complicated words. 

“It’s a process. Humor me.”

Desmond puffed exaggeratedly but he continued with utmost concentration. And that was just why Shaun was into him. Silly idiot, had to go and take everything he did very seriously. And stick out his tongue like that.

Shaun had to resort to acting like he was looking at stuff on his phone so that he didn’t keep following the path of it with his eyes but really, he was just opening and closing the menu. He was miserable. 

He caught the alarm before it went off. He started turning the cards around. 

Other than mixing up abscondment and absolvement, Desmond passed this one with flying colors as well.

“Please tell me these words won’t get more complicated. What is even,” he pulled the card close to his face, “abs- abcondment?”

“Desertion, abandonment, running away…”

“My vocabulary sucks.” He threw the card down onto the bed and rested his chin on his hand once more.

“Well, at least you’re aware of it. That’s the first step to improvement, innit?” Shaun collected the word cards to move on to the next bit. 

Desmond grimaced, “It might be a little late for me to get a high school diploma.”

“Do you... Want a high school diploma?” This wasn’t something Shaun had considered when he had thought about Desmond not having a conventional childhood. But he really hadn’t been to school, had he? Somehow it made Shaun feel embarrassed, kind of guilty but he couldn’t discern why exactly.

“Does it matter?”

“I mean- Yes? Yeah. You know what, “ Shaun meticulously placed new cards onto the bed, “I’m going to forge you a high school diploma.”

Desmond laughed, “I don’t know anything. I- Genuinely don’t know anything.” He shrugged bashfully. “I mean, I guess it doesn’t really matter when your only prospect was to become a field assassin but still. We were kind of homeschooled at The Farm but it wasn’t- I mean, I don’t know what schools are like but-” He shrugged again.

Ah. Now Shaun knew what he felt guilty for. God knew how many times he berated Desmond for not knowing simple facts. But really, whose fault was it that Desmond didn’t know. Not his, definitely. And well, he did do it to other people as well. It was who he was. Shaun Hastings, kind of an arsehole, at your service. But frankly, he hadn’t really cared about someone enough before to… Care about it, really. 

That was a scary thought.

“Well, that doesn’t matter anymore, does it? I’m going to forge you a diploma and then you’ll be like any other high school graduate in America.”

“Ooh! That’s cold.” Desmond laughed. “What if someone asks me the quadratic formula or something.”

“Well, that’s what you have an informant for. Keep your earpiece in and I’ll tell you that it’s a times x squared plus b times x plus c equals zero.” 

Desmond kept snickering but Shaun tried not to show just how much that sound pleased him. “Now, these are, as you can see, random objects that you have a minute to memorize and then we’ll see how many you can hold onto.”

“Uh- Why did you print these out?”

Shaun sighed, “I genuinely have no bloody idea what part of this process you’re questioning right now. I’m trying to help you-”

“No, no! I mean, like, we could have scoured the storage room for knick knacks. You can’t keep printing out stuff for this. I mean, you could but it would’ve been thriftier, yeah?”

This is why, Shaun thought looking at the little cards he printed out, this is why you don’t need school. You don’t need the Brotherhood, don’t need your dad. You don’t need me. You made it out there, all by yourself, because you just think like this, all the time, on the go.

The images were all random household objects. A safety pin, a bottlecap, a pen, a fork… A string for fuck’s sake. He could have pulled some off of the bedsheets right now. But no. The directory had said random objects on cards, so he had gone and printed out random objects on cards.

They had bags and bags of plastic forks just lying around, pens, other actually random objects. But practicality had never been Shaun’s strong suit. He knew useless facts like the quadratic formula and sat on the sidelines. His first instinct when he had heard a gunshot had been to freeze, Desmond’s had been to pull him off the roof and down low onto the ground. This was why-

Suddenly a hand appeared in front of his face. One finger gently pushed back his glasses that had slid to the tip of his nose. 

“I think it’s been a minute.”

Shaun blinked at Desmond’s smiling face.  
\--

“I think that’s clean enough.”

Shaun ran the soapy sponge over the pan they had used this morning to make pancakes for the thousandth time, “I’m thinking.” 

“That’s no reason to wear down the one good non-stick pan we have. Think faster.” Rebecca walked past him to pour coffee into her cup and left.

Shaun was thinking. He was thinking at the speed of light and at the pace of a snail at the same time, circling around the same thought over and over again. Desmond hadn’t been flirting. He hadn’t been. When he had pushed Shaun’s glasses up his nose. Nor when he put cream on his face.

They had come downstairs after a couple more exercises because Desmond had wanted coffee and Shaun had said something about preparing lunch. Desmond had started the coffee pot and had gone into the living room. He hadn’t really tried to hang out in the kitchen, hadn’t really stood any closer to Shaun while they walked down the stairs. He wasn’t doing anything different or saying anything, really. So there was no real reason to think he had been flirting.

But oh just how much Shaun wanted to think he had been.

He never knew it could be physically painful to wish for something he couldn’t have but here he was, elephant on his chest, pan in his hands, trying not to go inside and snap at Rebecca or Desmond; to start a fight just to feel something other than this. 

He had dated in the Brotherhood. Probably anyone in the circles had dated another assassin at some point. There wasn’t really anyone to get close to for an assassin, other than another assassin.

But he was starting to realize both the lack of time and the lack of an actual desire to get to know each other had kept all those relationships… Well, shallow, for the lack of a better word.

Now, with the guilt of the past three months in his pocket and an indefinite amount of time to get to know Desmond, he was basically lost as to what he was going to do.

He couldn’t tell Desmond how he felt. That would be absurd and honestly, he wasn’t sure what he felt anyway. Love was not something he had considered much before but then again like was such a weak word and crush felt so childish. Not to mention it would make everything so very awkward in this house they needed to share.

He just couldn’t stop thinking though. He couldn’t stop imagining a world where maybe, inexplicably, somehow Desmond also liked him and wanted to stick around for him. Even after it was okay to leave. But he knew there was no such thing in him that would make Desmond want something like this.

What was more troubling was that it seemed like he was a stranger to himself when he was feeling like this. Who was Shaun in love, in a long-term relationship? Was he an affectionate person? Did he do grand gestures? Did he enjoy quiet mornings? He didn’t know. 

This was a place he hadn’t been before and every commonplace relationship cliche he tried to imagine seemed alien to Shaun. Every act of affection he imagined doing felt like a second-hand costume even in his own daydreams. Not to mention, he had no idea what Desmond would like anyway.

He could just try and forget about it but if he knew himself, the more he tried to forget, the more ideas would latch onto his brain. 

“Is that… The same pan?”

Shaun lifted his head from the pan to see Desmond standing at the kitchen entrance, “Yes. It is.”

“You have been washing the same pan since we came down here.”

“Yes.”

Desmond sighed on a smile as he walked into the kitchen, “Shaun, there are better ways of- Of- I don’t know, what’s the problem.”

“No problem.”

Desmond gave him a look as he walked towards the coffee machine and poured himself the last cup. “Is that like how I have no problems or-”

Shaun glared at him.

“No, I’m just saying, if you don’t tell me what’s going on-”

“Oh shush!” Shaun wanted to splash him with dishwater but honestly, there was no water but just a huge dollop of foam in the pan at this point. He sighed. “Some things are just, well, I don’t want to talk about it.” He went back to rubbing the pan.

“Yeah, I know.” Desmond leaned against the counter.

Shaun gave up at last and turned on the faucet. “What are you thinking about?”

“I’m wondering if my flatmates have kept my stuff or if my clothes have already been shared between the guys in the bar.”

“There is a blue wire bound notebook on my desk inside. Go write your address into it.”

“Shaun-”

“I am an infiltration expert. I’ve led teams all over the world remotely. If there is something that can be retrieved, I’ll find you it.”

“You can’t keep doing shit like this.”

Shaun looked at him. He didn’t understand it. He truly didn’t understand Desmond. He didn’t understand the look on his face. He didn’t understand why Desmond would tell him about his old stuff if he didn’t want them back. The man was an enigma and Shaun, for the first time in his life, hated to find himself this puzzled.

“FUCK!”

They both jumped at Rebecca swearing from the living room. Shaun turned off the water and dried his hands. They went inside to find her furiously typing. 

“Issues with your precious?”

“Abstergo started a new subdivision for a project, called Subject 17.”

“And?” Shaun eyed her warily. 

“It’s for you,” she lifted her head up and looked at Desmond, “Subject 17 is you.”  
\--

“We can’t have one nice dinner in this household,” Shaun sulked as he stirred the rice. Lunch had been junk food, again, as they had weighed their options and conspired.

“It’s because of the chicken, chickens are cursed.” Rebecca was crouched, looking at the chickens in the oven.

Desmond ripped a pack of forks open with his teeth, “I think it’s me who's cursed. Where did you even get the information?”

“I’d been listening to Altair II’s communications since you came back from the doctor.”

“Nifty.” Desmond threw down three forks onto the table.

“Well,” Shaun started portioning the rice onto the plates just as Rebecca pulled the chicken out, “this just means that we need to work twice as fast and twice as harder. On what? Oh blimey, God knows! So, ordinary day in the Brotherhood.”

Desmond snickered.

“You are way too comfortable with this,” Rebecca threw a couple chicken pieces on her plate and moved to the table.

“We knew they had my DNA and who knows what else they have farmed from me while they had me at the Campus in Rome. It’s not really a surprise that they’re trying to see what else they can extract from it.”

“Go sit,” Shaun prepared Desmond’s plate too because, one handed man near a scalding oven pan? No, thanks. He had enough burns.

“Apparently they entered the temple about fifteen hours after you activated the thing at the pedestal. I couldn’t find anything about if they have been able to access the temple or if that’s a part of the Subject 17 research but I bet it is and I bet they will find something useful, even if they cannot access the entirety of what temple hides and-”

“Eat your dinner.”

“How can I eat my dinner when Abstergo is out there gaining on us?”

“You cannot save the world on an empty stomach.”

Rebecca looked at him like she was going to kill Shaun but Desmond saved him.

“He’s right, you know. I mean, I’d know because I tried and it wasn’t really pleasant.”

Shaun tried to hide his laugh. Regardless, it did get Rebecca to grudgingly start eating so, it was a success all around. Well, as much as things could succeed under these conditions.

They ate in silence. Shaun would have to make some adjustments to his brain training programme if Abstergo was really moving forward faster than they hoped they would. But he had gotten something to latch onto Desmond’s address was written down in his notebook inside, with the messiest handwriting known to man. A simple note below it said Thanks Shaun :) even though he had done nothing.

He had the misfortune of glancing at Desmond at the exact moment he was diligently separating his chicken pieces with the side of his fork, tongue slightly poking out of the side of his mouth. Oh bloody hell, back to square one for today. But he was going to earn that note.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this chapter? I don't even know. I don't want to say I don't like this chapter but I also feel like it didn't really reach its full potential. But also, there comes a time where you need to stop fiddling with things you've already written and move on to other things. For example, things you haven't written.
> 
> These two continue being the two sides of the same idiot coin in my head, as you can see. 
> 
> Once again, thank you thank you thank you so much for the comments. (/▽＼*)｡o○♡ I do keep reading all of them over and over again, especially at times when this story doesn't want to be written and it feels like nothing I write makes sense. It truly makes me so happy to see you guys enjoying it.


	7. Chapter 7

The guitar will be costly though.

Desmond had a guitar?

That’s alright, Shaun texted back, does it have a case?

Apparently Desmond didn’t have much. Mostly clothes, a couple of books and the guitar. Shaun had expected to feel victorious upon accomplishing this very personal task but the fact that Desmond’s entire life fit into two boxes and a guitar case made him dimmed his spirits. Somewhere deep in his brain told him that it wasn’t entirely healthy that all his emotions revolved around one man but oh well, it was futile trying to resist. 

He didn’t have much else to do anyway. Rebecca was on the edge constantly, dividing herself between Animus upgrades and trying to crack Abstergo’s future plans. She wasn’t her chattiest self. So, fixating on Desmond it was. 

At least Desmond was picking up the memory exercises quite easily. After conducting his control group experiments without the memory exercises, and yes, he needed those to track the process, he had started to introduce Desmond to the brain palace system.

“That sounds like the worst gimmick I have ever heard.” Desmond had looked at him skeptically after he had explained.

Pick a place you have already internalized, like a childhood home. Fill it with things you want to be able to recall and they will be there when you walk into your mind house. Well, palace.

“Johannes Mallow, who memorized nine hundred and thirty seven numbers in fifteen minutes would strongly disagree.”

“What good will being able to memorize that many things do to me?”

“Well, we’re going to tweak the concept a little bit for our own uses, of course. But to be able to do that, you need to learn the basics first. Now, if you had to pick somewhere that you can remember to the smallest detail, where would it be? It can be a house, a building, just a room… For now, at least. And,” Shaun had added, “it has to be yours. Cannot be Ezio’s, cannot be Altair’s, Connor’s… From your life.”

Desmond had answered quietly after a short deliberation, “This house?”

“Alright then, this house it is.”

Shaun had delved his hand into their bag of random objects and had pulled out a couple trinkets. Desmond was tasked with visualising the house and placing the objects in certain places in his mind and hopefully, he would remember them with certainty for a longer time. It was a simple concept but Shaun had expected it to be harder to execute. 

But Desmond’s mind latched onto the stuff like a leech. An overly-competent leech who had been trained as an assassin. It was brilliant to behold and so very attractive.

“I was taught to remember stuff like this, you know. Like, this house for example. Single exit. Four windows in the living room. One in the kitchen and each bedroom. Two in the storage, eight in total. About 19 feet tall from the roof. You know, that kind of stuff.”

It wasn’t Desmond’s fault. He couldn’t know that Shaun was into that kind of stuff. But oh God, did it do things to him. 

“What was the layout of the house back at The Farm like?”

“I-”

“They broke the main door, where do you go?” 

“First floor, bathroom window that faces the woods. Then you run. Underground bunker in about three hundred yards.”

They had looked at each other, realization setting in. So he could remember some things. That could work. If he had been able to compartmentalize that information without losing it entirely, he could do it to Animus memories as well.

And however much time it took, Shaun would be there to guide him.

Alas, their newfound closeness came with its own pangs for Shaun. He missed Desmond. When he was in the living room and Desmond was in the kitchen, he missed him. When he was laid down on the couch and heard him moving in his room in the quietness of the still night, his heart ached. 

When they sat on the bed upstairs, separated by mere centimeters; well, he still missed him. 

Yet, there was nothing to do about it. At some point, one had to accept that there were things you just couldn’t have. Shaun feared the moment Desmond mastered his own mind and no longer needed him in silence.  
\--

They continued memorizing a more and more complicated list of items throughout January. Shaun kept pushing Desmond to remember. New York was clearer. The Farm was more than a little hazy but then again, Shaun didn’t expect him to be able to recall his childhood with great detail anyway.

But he did remember the entire layout of the main building from The Farm and that’s where they decided they would lock up the unruly memories of Desmond’s ancestors.

“It’s not somewhere I actively think about,” Desmond had said, “not somewhere I’d like to visit again either. I wouldn’t be able to even if I tried, probably.”

They had not speculated on just how demolished his childhood home would be after the Templar attack. No need to add another depressing subject to their already lengthy list of depressing subjects.

“I want you to think about where Connor is in your brain. Where his Boston lies, his memories... I want you to take all of him with all of his Boston and his settlement, put them all into a room and then close the door on him.”

“Uh- Connor isn’t really our biggest problem though, is he?”

“No. He isn’t indeed. That’s why we’re starting with him. Safe waters. Well, relatively safe. I wouldn’t really call any of this truly safe.” 

“All of him at once?”

“Well, no. Not at once, obviously. But that’s our final goal. Now, since you know him the best, where do you think we should start?”

Connor needed to be dismantled, packed and stored away safely. His person was easy going. His Boston however, was stickier. 

“I see it, you know. When I climb up onto the roof, look around, it’s almost like I have an internal compass. He knows where everything is supposed to be. That’s such- Such an inherent thing to him. Like anyone knows their hometown, you know. That’s very hard to strip off. Especially while we‘re, well, here.”

It wasn’t a straight process. Well, nothing ever was but this one was more shaky than ever. Shaun was doing his damndest to not trigger a bleeding effect episode whenever they worked on it. Still, it was bound to happen. And it did indeed.

“Draw an imaginary perimeter around it. Or better yet, do you think you can visualise it? A garden fence, perhaps? Actually, we should put that in Animus as a feature, it’ll be a reminder of-”

He realized it the moment Desmond’s eyes went glazed, looking into the distance, seeing things that weren’t there. He seemed like he wouldn’t be able to blink even if he tried.

They had talked about the bleeding effect. Desmond had described what it was like in great detail. A moment of confusion, a tiny slip and he was gone. Like falling asleep, he had said. For one moment he would be in the moment, the next, he’d be gone. 

Coming out of this out-of-body experience was somehow worse. He’d find himself in places he couldn’t remember how he got to. He’d hear echoes of whatever memory had overtaken him, just to go round and round looking for the centuries old guards shouting after him. Sometimes he’d be completely numb, detached with nothing to feel, his brain scrambling to find the real Desmond in the clutter of memories to no avail.

He had also told Shaun that he had been hiding it when he could.The flashes of smells, sounds and images that invaded his head on the daily. Shaun would have killed him for omitting his troubles but that would have been a waste of their combined efforts, really.

And now, someone was bleeding into Desmond right before his eyes. Shaun could only hope it was Connor and not someone more prone to violence.

Desmond lifted his good hand, as if to say, just a moment; he swayed where he was sitting. In his panic, Shaun grabbed it. 

“Desmond? Can you at least still hear me? Hey, look- Uh- Distraction?” Desmond squeezed his hand. “Distraction! Alright. Uh- Did you know- Hmm.” 

Trying to find something to talk about while your heart was trying to leap out of your chest? Not the easiest task. But Desmond’s hand in his was warm and the hold hadn’t turned malicious yet, which was enough to kick his useless brain into gear. “Today- Today is the 23rd! Desmond this is great, you have to listen. I’ll kill you if you don’t listen. Look. In 1960, January 23rd, people did something almost as crazy as us. It certainly was bloody deadly. But they survived. Listen.”

Shaun continued, “Two mad lads, like you and me, decided to get into a submarine and dunk themselves into the ocean like a biscuit. And not just any part of the ocean but the Mariana Trench. Their names were Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh. I remember this very well because I’m scared of the ocean.”

Desmond’s hand spasmed in his. He seemed to be in this half and half state, able to hear Shaun but unable to answer or react. But he hadn’t tipped over into a full bleed yet either. Shaun could only hope that his incessant talking helped him stay grounded.

“Their goal was to reach the Challenger Deep, literally the deepest point in the ocean. Madness. But they did, you know. It took them about five bloody hours and a busted window, I believe. They went down to about ten thousand kilometers deep and you know what I love about the story, they were seeing these little critters as they descended into the trench. That’s life at about a thousand times the atmospheric pressure at sea level. Desmond, things live there!”

“Oh fuck.”

“Oh fuck, indeed.”

“Wait, my head is spinning. Ugh. Why do you even know that?”

“It’s general culture. Bloody fucking hell, Desmond, you bastard. You did it!” He wasn’t really thinking, his nerves were all over the place and he wasn’ thinking. He moved to hug Desmond.

Desmond panicked, “Wait! My arm.”

“I- Uh-” Shaun scrabbled in embarrassment until his brain caught on. Oh right. The burns.

“Side hug!” It was Desmond who leaned in first. 

It was so weird. Shaun’s hands were still shaking. He could see the light sheen of perspiration on Desmond’s skin, resisting his own brain taking its toll on his body. But this was the first time they were so close and simply put, it made Shaun sad. He wanted to think of it as a victory for Desmond but it was just another notch of suffering he had to endure. Desmond’s arm was wrapped around his back, heavy and solid. He smelled clean. His shoulder was right under Shaun’s chin but he couldn’t lean onto it.

“Thanks, Shaun.”

“Yeah,” he replied silently. What else was there for him to do? “Desmond, one day these things will pass.” They separated. “The nightmares will stop, the voices will go away and you’ll be yourself again. Alright?”

Desmond gave him a slight smile, “Alright.”  
\--

February came with Desmond’s stuff in a box or two. Finally. 

“Just how many states have these things travelled?” Rebecca nudged one of the boxes with the tip of her foot.

“Many. I wasn’t about to take any bloody chances.” Shaun had sent the packages around enough that their initial address was well buried under many others and finally, to an empty house close to theirs. And from there he had picked them up himself, trying not to dwell on the fact that they were lighter than he had expected. The guitar though, was in one piece. He had checked.

“Des is asleep still. You gonna wake him up?”

“Should I?” Shaun stood in the entryway, now that his grand plan was over, he was unsure of how to progress.

“Well, if you’re gonna, make some more coffee. I’m drinking the last of it.” Rebecca moved behind her screens and firmly put back on her headphones. 

So she was still in her moods.

Shaun couldn’t blame her. Since she had heard about the Abstergo project started for Desmond on Altair II’s comms, she had split herself in between Animus updates and Abstergo tracking. Shaun was helping as much as he could with the tracking but there were only so many leads he could follow at once and Rebecca was faster and more experienced. Shaun just did what he was told.

She was also the only one who could actually code so... Yeah. She had to work on the Animus because they would never stop needing the Animus. Especially a better working version that didn’t push people’s sense of self out of their minds. But she couldn’t let go of the Abstergo business either because it was clear that if they hadn’t heard of it on their own accord, no one would have told them a bloody thing. 

And it was about Desmond too. That ate at Shaun and Rebecca both.

He moved into the kitchen to make coffee. He could wake up Desmond. took out the filter and shook the coffee grounds into the rubbish bin. He ran it under water. He put three heaping tablespoons of coffee grounds into the clean filter. Poured water into the boiler. He could definitely wake Desmond up.

Surely, it wasn’t healthy to get so nervous over waking up someone. Still, the closer they got the more it hurt Shaun to look at Desmond at his vulnerable moments.

They were friends. Honest to God friends. How that could be both elating and crushing, Shaun couldn’t understand. One part of him yearned for the moments they shared together. The other part wished they’d leave before he said something he might regret and ruined their friendship. 

Regrettably, the whole of him knew that he could indeed hide his feelings until they burnt out in the end. But he couldn’t say that it wouldn’t break him to do that.

The water in the coffee machine started boiling. Shaun watched the coffee slowly starting to drip down.

The worst thing was that Desmond had the kindest face ever. It was ridiculous. Shaun could see him looking, smiling, his eyes crinkling in the corners. Scratch that, he was the kindest bloody person. How was he William’s son? He boiled extra water for the tea that no one else but Shaun drank. He topped off everyone’s drinks whenever he got up during meals, though he said that was “professional deformation.” He cleaned and tidied up despite still having only one reliably working hand. 

For fuck’s sake, he aired the house and the beds when Rebecca and him stayed up to pull an all-nighter so that whether you slept upstairs or in the living room you’d be getting into a fresh smelling bed.

It was bad enough to fall for someone when he went and saved the world. It was worse to live with him, see him in the morning and at night and know that they were just as charming as they seemed, were as kind as you’d expect a man who saved the world would be.

“Oh! Is that my guitar?!”

Shaun jumped. Desmond stood at the kitchen entrance, sweatpants low slung and t-shirt rumpled. Smiling. He looked- Well, he looked good. Shaun felt very self conscious of the mismatched clothing he had thrown on haphazardly to pick up the packages.

Desmond walked into the kitchen instead of going to the living room. He put his hand on Shaun’s shoulder, leaning against the counter. “Thanks Shaun. You didn’t have to do it, you know.”

“Well, yeah. They are inside, so-” Shaun shrugged. 

Desmond’s hand fell. He nodded. Biting his lip, he gave him another small smile and walked away.

Shaun stood in the kitchen feeling like did something very rude, like he missed something very obvious. But his brain not only refused to understand nuances in human relationships but also refused to be optimistic about them. So he stared at the coffee filling the pot one drop at a time.  
\--

“These creases will never get out.” Desmond held up a white dress shirt that looked like it had been to hell and back.

“I’m frankly surprised to see you own this many formal clothes, let alone any.”

“Eh,” Desmond threw the shirt back into the box, “bars ask for it. Black slacks and a white shirt, most of the time. And let me tell you, you wouldn't want to work in a place where they say wear whatever you want nor in a place that has actual uniforms for their bartenders.”

“You know what, I genuinely can’t imagine you as a bartender. I am trying to and my brain is like,” Shaun lifted his arms, “sorry mate, the man doesn’t know how to use a can opener.”

“Hey! That wasn’t my fault, I have only one hand!”

“Oh, so you do now.”

Not long after the coffee was done, they had slinked upstairs together because Rebecca wanted no one around as she worked nowadays. Shaun liked his excuse to spend time with Desmond but really, seeing Rebecca like that saddened both of them. 

Desmond had filled her cup wordlessly and she hadn’t reacted. Shaun hoped she’d have a breakthrough soon, otherwise he was going to have to drag her away from her screens himself. For her own good.

Being here, sitting on the floor and sorting through Desmond’s clothes as they drank coffee was oddly soothing. It was… Domestic. Shaun once hated that word and everything that came with it. Now he craved it.

“I liked it, you know. Bartending.”

“I really can’t see it.” Shaun threw a t-shirt into their will be washed pile. He could, actually. He could imagine Desmond smiling at girls and guys alike, scared lips pulling up on one side. He could imagine him being a show-off, throwing shit into air just for the sake of it in crowded, strobe-lighted clubs. He could imagine him charming the patrons and listening to drunkards patiently in quiet bars.

He didn’t want any of it to be real, though. He wanted to hoard Desmond’s time and kindness just for himself. Which was ridiculous because he had no bloody right.

But his heart wanted it anyway.

“I had no plan when I ran away. I just knew I didn’t want to be an assassin. Not the one my dad wanted me to be at least. The Farm was so far away from everything and I was just- I was sixteen and just-” Desmond sighs, leaning onto his good hand, “I was in love with the idea of New York. The city that never sleeps. I didn’t think I’d become one of the cogs kept it running. I- Well, I don2t know what I thought, really.” He scratched the back of his head, “You can say it sounds stupid if you want to, that I should have known better or-”

“No, I- I don’t think it’s- I mean,” Shaun shrugged and waved the piece of clothing he had in his hand, “when I was at that age I thought I’d be a super-hacker-hero, digging into Abstergo’s stuff and I- Well, I got my family killed instead.”

Shaun didn’t like telling that story. He had been a kid; blindingly brilliant and so bloody stupid at the same time. And that whole ordeal had turned him into a double-checker, a sceptic of human nature and a worrier. But hey, that worked if you were an assassin, right? Looking at Desmond though, Shaun knew he understood. At the root of it, maybe all delusions of grandeur at that age were pretty much the same.

And it seemed they all led to bitter disappointment.

“I’m sorry Shaun.”

“That’s how I got here so-” Shaun shrugged again. He didn’t know himself what he meant by that, being here or becoming an assassin but Desmond smiled.

“Life has a way, huh?”

“It does.” Shaun played with a tiny hole in the fabric between his hands.

“I had some of my worst memories in New York.” Desmond laid down, putting his head on the pile of clothes, the sorting out business seemingly forgotten. 

“Not The Farm?” Shaun continued sifting through the clothes to his heart’s content, just to keep himself from looking at Desmond lounging like that.

“No,” Desmons laughed, “I really didn’t know what I was getting into, you know, running away with a backpack like that. I was imagining a more Hollywood-style New York, I was so disappointed in what I’d found. I was like, yeah, big city, lights, skyscrapers, opportunities!” 

He laughed again, “I’d thought my knife would be my most used tool. It ended up being the chain cutter I bought with like, the last of my money.”

“You broke into places?”

“Yeah, into trash cans. I lived like that for two years.”

That was so unfair. The grand choices they fought for meant nothing to Shaun if it led to a kid rummaging in rubbish because he felt like he had no way out. No choice. There was a lump in his throat but he wasn’t going to cry. He bit his tongue.

“Then I became a bartender. Well,” Desmond rolled to his side, “I became a cleaning lady first.”

Shaun snorted. 

“No, really. The bar I worked for, their cleaning lady, who was indeed a woman by the way, had quit the job but, well, paperwork shmaperwork, they kept paying me in her name. Then I started helping behind the bar when it was busy and yeah. I don’t know why I’m even-” He gave an apologetic smile.

“I like learning things about you.” 

Shaun didn’t know what possessed him to actually say that out loud but he had. He could see that Desmond was surprised to hear that. Oh buddy, me too. But after a single second of dwelling it hurt, how dare Desmond got surprised to hear that after a month of huddling up together to un-bugger his bloody brain. Yes, maybe Shaun had been surprised as well but couldn’t one of them at least-

“Well, I like learning things about you too. When you don’t shoo me away.”

“I’m-” He scrambled, “I’m busy Desmond.”

They broke into a laugh. It was ridiculous. It really was. Desmond hurt him so much. Just being around him and in his aura of impossible possibilities held Shaun’s heart and squeezed it dry. But it was oh so addictive to laugh with him like that.

“Would you like to go back? I mean, if you could? Would you want to go back to New York? And, I don’t know, be a bartender again?”

“World’s most overqualified bartender.”

“Would you?”

“I love New York, you know. For all that it’s worth, I made a life there. I learned to love it in the end but-” He gave a one shouldered shrug. “I don’t think I could go back.”

“But what if-”

“No, Shaun. Even if every single Abstergo worker forgot my name and my mug, their computers were wiped clean and I had a one way ticket to JFK I still- I couldn’t.”

“But-”

“So don’t try to do it, okay? I’m this is my life now. This- Here. Okay?” 

It was not the answer Shaun wanted to hear. But then again, he hadn’t really asked after all of this, would you like to stay with me? 

“Alright. I’ll see you when you get cabin fever and beg me to go to the grocery store though.”

Desmond laughed.

“You keep laughing, I won’t take you. I’ll be like, oh blimey, what if Abstergo finds the CCTV footage, they have your face, we can’t let them know you like skimmed milk!”  
\--

Shaun didn’t get to have one good day. No, he was not allowed victories. He was not allowed peace. No, because he had gone and given his heart to the world’s most self-sacrificial man. 

“I have no idea how they extracted it or like, from where- I’m just-” Rebecca buried her face into her hands.

Abstergo had a set of memory data from one more of Desmond’s ancestors. Who? Who knew. How important? Who knew. Who knew what kind of information the memories contained, if it would connect to Juno or not, if it would aid the cause of the Templars or just keep them busy. Everything was horribly uncertain and Shaun hated it.

“They are trying to find a way to replay them without a direct descendant. They-”

“They don’t have that though.” Shaun tried to keep a level head. “Not yet. No? Desmond is here. Bill is still on Altair II.”

“They sounded so sure-”

“They can’t do a bloody thing, Rebecca.” 

It was always like this. Dig and you’ll find trouble. Well, Rebecca had dug and she had dug in deep. And she had found it. Enough trouble to last them a lifetime. Several lifetimes. Again.

Altair II and crew knew of this too. And there was still no official communication from William or anyone else. It either meant they didn’t care about the news or they didn’t care about Desmond and both were equally horrible to contemplate. Abstergo working on ways to replay memories without a descendant didn’t mean they’d quit tracking Desmond. Hell, now that they had memories and were actively working to see them, they had even more reasons to track Desmond. 

“We could do it, you know.” Desmond sat beside Rebecca. “We could-”

“You’re not getting into the Animus.” 

“Shaun-”

“I didn’t spend my entire month trying to un-fuck your brain so that you can get into that thing and start scrambling it to the point of no return.”

“It’s my fucking brain.”

Rebecca put a hand on Desmond’s shoulder, “Guys, come on.”

He shrugged her off, “Can you imagine? If these memories led them to another temple like the one that had Juno in it? Or to something that holds something worse? Who knew what those Isu had in store, what if it led them to the-”

“We cannot work on what-ifs, Desmond.” Shaun had trouble controlling his voice.

“What if it was the world that’s on the line? We could get one step ahead, one fucking step.”

“Bloody world can wait for two seconds, you’re still having bleeds. And they have no leads-”

“You know what, you have just turned me into your own little fucking science project. Are you worried I’m gonna undo all your precious little work, Shaun?”

Oh that stung. That stung so bad. He was grateful that he was livid enough that he didn’t just start crying then and there. He knew he would, when he had time to unpack all those feelings but right now he was so mad.

“Guys,” Rebecca stood between them but really, Shaun saw nothing but red.

“You self-righteous bastard! I care about you! Stop thinking of saving the world for once. It doesn’t need you!”

“We live in this world you fucker! We need it.”

“Enough!” Rebecca shouted. “Desmond, get the hell out of here, go upstairs, I don’t know.”

“Becs-”

“No, just- Go. We don’t even know whose memories they have. We can’t just start poking your brain like that.”

Shaun folded his arms. He was right. He was right and everyone else was wrong.

“Please,” Rebecca pushed Desmond away, “just go and cool down.” 

He left without looking at Shaun. 

“Could you-”

“No.” Shaun turned away from Rebecca. He couldn’t. He wanted to stay and help with whatever Rebecca needed but he knew he had no mental capacity for that and that he’d mess everything up. Instead, he made for the door. “I’m going out, I’m going- I don’t know, grocery shopping.”

He put on his coat. His boots. Took the keys and walked into the snow.

All the way, he thought about how Desmond accused him of turning him into a science project. Was he doing that? Really? Shaun knew he fixated on the wrong stuff constantly. Was his suppressed feelings turning into an obsession with fixing Desmond? 

Desmond didn’t need fixing. 

Well, he needed help. True. But he didn’t- Shaun would love him even if he bled everyday, forgot where he was and who he was entirely. But Desmond didn’t know Shaun loved him. Shaun didn’t know he loved him until very recently. 

But none of that mattered. Only that Desmond felt used and used again and it left Shaun feeling empty. He couldn’t do one thing right and it killed him.

He walked around the store, unseeing. They didn’t really need groceries. Rebecca had stocked them up real good. He bagged up some fruits, just to be buying something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are the chapters too fucking long? Am I rambling? Is this necessary information or am I just writing words for the sake of writing words? No one knows. Plot was a mistake. This fic should have just been THEY KISSED, BYE. 
> 
> I mean, I'm enjoying the writing part. So you're going to get long ass chapters. I just hope you're also enjoying it. Because this is what it is. (*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ)
> 
> We don't have many chapters left. Because I don't want this fic to be 50K so I'm just putting it here as, uh, AccountabilityTM. They are idiots. Sigh, if they only kissed. I can't believe I have to write that MYSELF. 
> 
> Anytime someone posts a comment I eat it while making Yoshi sounds. [Like this.](https://youtu.be/-OHD4apQUuQ)


	8. Chapter 8

“Can I come in?”

Shaun had heard Desmond knocking at his door the first time too. But the moment he heard the knock, he had become nervous about seeing him again. When he had came back from his meager shopping trip he had been so set on apologizing but now… It almost felt like the worry in him had festered. Hey, yeah, sorry for shouting at you but you can’t go into Animus. Wouldn’t that start the fight all over again? 

He didn’t want to fight again.

“I can see your light and I heard you typing. Come on.”

Shaun slumped against the headboard, “What do you want, Desmond?” He cringed. He was supposed to be working on being less aggressive. Right. Back on that in a minute.

Desmond poked his head in, shrouded in the blanked Shaun had thrown over him earlier. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright. I mean, if you think about it, it’s really not alright. You arse, how dare you!” Shaun sighed, “But yeah, I shouldn’t have- I shouldn’t have shouted either. Sorry.” 

Which was true. How dare him indeed. But also, he knew the panic feeling useless brought. He had felt it too. For three months; they had eaten, slept and worked only to save the world from destruction. Yet, it was like their efforts did not count at all. Their sacrifices meant nothing. Abstergo pressed on, the world demanded that they stand up to the challenge. Again.

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Desmond came in with his blanket cape on his shoulders, plopped down onto the foot of the bed, crossing his legs. He fiddled with his blanket. “I’m- Uh- I’m sorry for calling you- Well, not you, me, but that doesn’t- I mean the science project thing. That wasn’t- I don’t really think that Shaun.”

At least his laptop was still on his knees so Shaun didn’t have to look at Desmond’s face too much. “So you just said that to hurt me. Brilliant, really.”

Ah yes, he was going to work on the defensiveness too, wasn’t he. Well, one step forward, two steps back.

“Shaun. Come on, no. I mean-” Desmond sighed, “I didn’t. I swear. I wasn’t trying to hurt you, I just-” He fiddled with his blanket some more, “Okay, it will sound really bad but I-” He sighed again.

“It’s okay, you can say it.” Shaun still refused to look at his face.

“I’m used to the assassin business being about using me. I’m- I know how to deal with that. I don’t know- I don’t know where we’re going. I don’t know how to deal with that.”

“What do you mean where it’s going?”

“I mean, what if you’re wasting your time? How long can you keep wasting your time? I-”

Shaun slapped his laptop shut. “I am not wasting my bloody time. Are you daft? Are you very dense?”

“Shaun-”

“Don’t Shaun me! Bloody idiot, that’s what you are!”

“See, I told you it would sound bad.”

“It does! You git! Are you- Are you lying to me?”

“What?!”

Shaun pushed his laptop aside and pulled his legs towards his chest. He didn’t want to have this conversation. He was afraid of what he might hear. Still, he asked. “When we’re working on memory exercises, when we work on- I don’t know, packing up the ancestral baggage, do you lie to me about their effectiveness against bleeding effect and such?”

“No! No, why would I do that?”

“Then why would I be wasting my time?”

Desmond didn’t answer to that. Frankly, Shaun didn’t know what exactly bothered Desmond. He felt tired. He felt like there was something, some unspoken thing that they were circling around but Desmond didn’t say anything. 

Or maybe, well, maybe Shaun was just projecting. He sighed. “I don’t understand you.”

Desmond laughed humorlessly. “You and me both.”

He wouldn’t be able to get an answer if Desmond had none. Shaun felt lost. 

It was late. He was tired. Everything was a mess as always. Shaun hadn’t expected the period of his life where he wanted a little respite to come as early as his late twenties but here he was. If there was one piece of enlightenment this whole ordeal had given him though, it was that there would never be rest. None as long as he was alive. Life heeded to no request, gave no warning. Things kept happening, piling on top of each other and overlapping.

And what had Shaun done to make his life easier? He had gone and looked at this idiot of a man and said yes, this one. As if shunning a normal life to work for an secret organization was not enough, his heart had gone and picked a man clutching onto the last strands of his sanity.

It wouldn't help to dwell on it. Desmond didn’t give him anything to clutch onto but maybe it was because he had nothing to start with. No idea where to go, what to do… It was best to move on.

“Well,” Shaun sighed, “I’m sorry too. For, I mean, for raising my voice and such. It was- Yeah, it was really unnecessary.” And now his nose was stinging. Brilliant. 

“It’s alright, Shaun.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Shaun hugging his legs and Desmond wrapped in his blanket. He looked cute, the corner of it draped on his head like the hoodie he wore so much. It amused Shaun, to think of them like two kids having a secret sleepover. And here he was with his secret crush. And then there was Desmond, oblivious with his own burdens on his shoulders.

“It does help, you know.” 

Shaun lifted an eyebrow.

“The- Uh- Exercises. I know Altair has been troublesome but whatever we lock up, stays that way. And I have been having less bleeds, there are certainly less Borgia guards knocking at my door at 3AM.”

“Less.”

Desmond huffed. “Look, some of them are just regular nightmares okay, you can only run away from those guys so much before you develop a healthy fear of those fuckers. What I’m trying to say is it- It does help, Shaun. You help so much but I just- I want to be useful. Every second I could be doing something to help and I’m just sitting here and-” He gestured widely, his blanket flapping around him.

“Why would it be useless to have yourself healthy and whole?”

“Why should it be your problem though?”

Shaun opened his mouth to rebuke but Desmond continued, “I don’t- I’m not trying to make light of what you’re doing, Shaun, I’m grateful. Look at me, I am. You’ve literally given my life back to me. I’m just- I-” He sighed, burying his face in his hand, “Maybe I should have found a way of staying with those neurologists back in December.” 

You’ve given my life back to me. Who did he think he was? Who said shit like that? It surely didn’t help with the lump in Shaun’s throat.

“Desmond,” Shaun started, at least his voice didn’t shake, yet. “You’re not a bloody burden.”

“Wow. You’re saying that? Mr. Go away, Desmond?” His voice was choked.

Shaun didn’t want him to cry. Then he’d also cry. He just couldn’t understand the look in Desmond’s eyes. Was he sad? Resigned? He couldn’t place it. Why was his mirthless smile? Why the tears? What was he looking for? For a man who claimed to love him, Shaun knew Desmond very little and understood him even less. 

“I don’t shoo you away.” His voice shook horribly.

Desmond sniffed, “No, nowadays you don’t.”

Shaun opened his mouth. He wanted to say because I love you. He did. He wanted to be able to say because I want you near and I want you here always. But the words didn’t come out. They got lodged somewhere in his chest, heavy like lead and they just didn’t come out.

He tried to imagine. Once they had gotten out of here and Desmond’s head reliably free of interloper assassins, they would surely be assigned to different places. Desmond was hell bent on staying an assassin and wasn’t that William’s dream anyway? he’d be sent to places all around the world and Shaun would be in some nondescript van or some other safe house that looked dead to the passersby. 

They would drift apart. That would be worse than rejection.

Desmond would meet interesting people. Assassins more like him, who took their chances and leaped into danger without looking. Shaun would be busy with the unseen parts of the missions, tracking down targets and artifacts and connecting dots and they would- Well, they would drift apart.

And Shaun wouldn’t blame Desmond for it. But it wouldn’t stop him from crying, just like now.

“You know,” Desmond sniffed. “You know I don’t have to be your problem, right? If you sat down to help Rebecca, I wouldn’t say ‘Why didn’t you save me?’ Shaun, I know your work is important. If something comes up and you decide it’s more important than my mental state, I won’t hold it against you. You know that, right?”

That just choked Shaun more. Who was he to decide if a life could be sacrificed in exchange for anything, let alone information they couldn’t even be sure existed?

“You put too much faith in me.”

A tear rolled down Desmond’s face, found its way into the scar on his lip and disappeared, “You first.”

“You moron.” Shaun pressed his face against his knees, trying to compose himself just a little bit so that he didn’t start sobbing. His tears soaked into his joggers. It was all in vain. He had put his trust in Desmond. They all did but it had been because they had to. 

He had no right to take any credit for that. Desmond shouldn’t have given him any. He felt like a sham. He was not the good man Desmond thought he was. No he had sat there, behind his computer and waited for Desmond to sacrifice himself.

“Shaun?” 

He couldn’t lift his head up and look at Desmond. His shoulders shook. What a terrible thing was it to feel. Shaun felt everything.

“Shit. Shaun? I didn’t want to- Shaun?” 

He felt Desmond moving. He wrapped his blanket around Shaun tightly. It was warm still, smelt like him. It almost felt like a hug. That thought didn’t help at all. It wasn’t a hug. That wasn’t something Shaun was going to get and it wasn’t something he could ask for. He didn’t quite deserve it either.

“Shaun. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to- Do you want me to talk about something else? Do you- Shaun? Please say something.”

It wasn’t fair to him, to Desmond, to see him like this; having to deal with the result of his emotions festering. Shaun tried to breathe, for one moment, then he could let it go.

“Can you please leave?”

“Shaun. Come on. I thought-”

“Please.” He cleared his throat as best as he could. “Desmond, please. Just leave me be.”

Leave him be, Desmond did.  
\--

They didn’t talk about it next morning or in the coming days. Couple of months ago, Shaun would have been embarrassed to have shown so much emotion. He’d probably fake his own kidnapping, then his tragic death and would run away to Peru to avoid coming face to face with Desmond after crying in front of him.

Alas, he was a changed man. Or he simply lacked energy to feel embarrassed anymore. Maybe it was because a man who wore joggers with carpet-patterned sweaters didn’t have the luxury to feel embarrassed.

They continued working together and didn’t talk about it. Which was relieving for Shaun, which was why it had taken him a couple days to realize they didn’t really talk about anything else either. Not anymore. They sat down to do their exercises, going through Ezio’s memories. They sat down around their little kitchen table and ate their dinner and they no longer talked about, well, anything of consequence.

So Shaun had probably ruined whatever friendship him and Desmond had been developing. Brilliant. Very nice.

He knew, in the long run, it was better this way. It wasn’t going to go anywhere anyway so why hang around Desmond, constantly wishing for something more. Nip it in the bud. Yeah, that was going swimmingly for him. Didn’t hurt at all.

At least, Desmond had stopped asking to be put back into the Animus. 

That, of course, didn’t stop the three of them from sitting in the living room and going full on conspiracy theorist on Abstergo. Which then devolved into Desmond putting Rebecca’s alcohol stash to good use at her behest and opening three kinds of crisps at the same time, which was truly the height of extravagance.

Unfortunately for them, it turned out that he was a really good bartender. Despite their choices being pretty limited, he mixed them fruity cocktails with whatever juice they had and they all went down easily. In the end, Shaun and Rebecca got thoroughly soused pretty fast. Desmond didn’t drink because, well, his head.

“They must know something we don’t know.”

“That is indeed how things work. We are not them, therefore, they will always know some thing that we-”

“Shaun.” Rebecca waved her mug towards him, her drink sloshing.

“Watch your cup, please. I’m a bartender, never worked at a carpet cleaning service.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Rebecca licked her vodka concoction dripping from her hand. “First of all, don’t sass me. Second of all, this is like, the most we’ve ever been stationary. We didn’t quite go radio silent either. I’m starting to believe Abstergo isn’t even looking for us. Which makes me think, maybe they already have something that can decode memories without a descendant.”

“You’d think they’d be able to keep quiet about it for so long?”

Desmond played with a cap from a long finished orange juice bottle. “If they already have such a technology, then we- I don’t know, imagine if they could skip memories or replay them, again and again. That would put us at such a disadvantage.”

“It makes sense that they’d be looking for a way to eliminate the need for descendants but it just, it doesn’t fit with what we know they’ve been doing. They can’t have developed a whole new technology in the last three or four months alone. So if they had plans this solid for a device like that, why kidnap Desmond?”

“For my memories?”

“No, no. He’s onto something.” Rebecca took a swig. “If for memories, then why keep you alive? Or awake, even? You were a liability to them. And don’t get me wrong but I don’t think Lucy had that big of a sway in Abstergo, enough to keep you awake and going around when they could have just cracked your head open.”

“Yeah, no. Especially if she had truly been converted, the Templars would know of her background with the Brotherhood then. They wouldn’t have trusted her, not with a decision like that.”

Everyone nodded solemnly. Rebecca extended her empty mug to Desmond. He went to work.

“Oh God! How do you do that?” Rebecca bended in half, looking at Desmond mixing alcohol in two glasses that he had turned into a shaker.

“It was my job!” He said, exasperated. “Why are you surprised I’m good at my actual job? This paid bills, you know.”

Shaun threw back the last of his drink to make room in his mug. “Don’t derail the conversation, Becky.”

“Oh you’re getting real cocky now, huh? Call me that once more and your liquid courage-”

“Alright! Alright, now. Children,” Desmond twisted the glasses open, “please stop fighting.”

“Ugh. Bartender!” Rebecca lifted her cup. “Another!”

“So,” said Shaun, putting his mug forward in a more civilized manner, “All mind gymnastics lead to the assumed fact that this technology does not exist yet. However, there must be some very good leads if they’re willing to put this much faith into it.”

“Indeed. And I have been looking into this, I was only able to find some really, truly vague receipts for purchases from MysoreTech in Bangalore, India being directed through Templar networks but fuck if I can find who they were being sent to. All I can tell is that, well, Mysore seems to have been only recently added to the Templar network.”

“What are they buying?” Desmond reached for some crisps.

“Nothing incriminating. Yet. Regular hardware purchases like semiconductor chips, fuses, batteries. Could be their regular commercial VR stuff, could be something else entirely. But it’s Templar money.”

“Which brings us to the next question.” Shaun twirled his cup. “Who is this ancestor? Do they know which ancestor? If so, how? Do they have a list of Desmond’s all known ancestors? What information do the memories even have and are they important?”

Desmond leaned against his hand. “There was more than one question there.”

“Well,” said Rebecca, “We can’t answer any of those anyway. But-” She held a finger high, “I have been trying to unearth the impossible for the last like, two weeks or so. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I think we should let it go. Let Abstergo go and focus on making my sweet Baby actually usable. You know, without brain scrambling. That’s- For us, that seems to be the only way.”

“And Juno?”

“Shaun, there is nothing we can do about Juno.” She sighed. “Look, I hate it too, okay. I hate not knowing what’s gonna happen. I hate that we can’t do anything about it but like, dwelling’s not gonna help.”

Shaun had nothing to say to that. And frankly, their drunkenness was nearing the no eloquent thoughts levels. When the alcohol stopped burning on the way down, he was in trouble. Big trouble. At least, Rebecca was as far gone as he was.

“How do you,” she waved a crisp dusted finger at Desmond, “how d’you decide what’s to be mixed and what’s to be shaken?”

“Well,” Desmond pulled a bottle of gin away from her grasp, “as a rule of thumb, if it’s cloudy, you shake it. If it’s clear, you probably wanna mix it.”

“Hmm… Pickle juice.”

“Yep, that’s your call.” He started collecting the vodka and the gin. He turned to Shaun. “How are you faring?” 

He was just going to say alright. Because that’s what he was, he was alright. And alright was not drunk. “You know so much about cocktails.”

“I’ll take that as very drunk, thank you.” Desmond took his mixing glasses and the alcohol to the kitchen.

Rebecca kicked Shaun. She pointed to the kitchen. “Say something!”

“No!”

“Then I will!”

“NO!”

It probably wasn’t a good idea to wrestle like children when there were easily crushable crisps and easily spillable drinks still lying around. It was probably an even worse idea to do so when they were drunk. But oh well, they were drunk.

However, pulling a gorged on alcohol Rebecca back by her middle while she tried to get up was the worst of the decisions as it greatly resembled a Heimlich maneuver. Instantly regrettable action. Shaun realized that a nanosecond too late.

“Oh fuck I’m gonna puke!”

“Not on the carpet!” Desmon came running in with a plastic bowl from the kitchen, barely making it.

“Oh dear! We made salad in that bowl, it was a good bowl.”

“You can still make salad in it, it’s going to be washed.” 

Shaun shook his head. It made him dizzy. “Nope. It’s dead to me now, Rebecca puked in it.”

Desmond sighed and gingerly escorted Rebecca upstairs, possibly to the bathroom. Shaun threw himself onto the couch. The room was turning. At least Rebecca wouldn’t be able to talk while emptying her stomach. 

So, a successful endeavour. Nine out of ten. One point deducted for making Desmond deal with the mess.

“Why do you like the carpet so much?” Shaun asked from the couch when he heard Desmond coming down the stairs.

“I don’t like the carpet. Do you have any idea how hard it is to wash carpets? Or how hard it is to get rid of a carpet? We can’t just throw it in the garbage.” 

Shaun could hear him fiddling in the kitchen. 

“We can’t wash it in this weather either, so we’d have to drop it off at a carpet cleaner, leave our name and number and hey, free mugshot with the security cameras too. Two days later, Abstergo at our door.”

“Oh blimey.” If he was drunker, Shaun would probably blurt out something absolutely silly about how sexy it was that Desmond thought about logistics while mixing drinks. He held onto that last bit of sober sanity he had.

Desmond came over with a blanket under his arm. “Mhm.”

Shaun stared. Desmond stared back. He looked amused. Shaun hoped he wasn’t looking too funny. 

“How drunk are you?”

“Do I look funny?”

Desmond laughed. He wiped his hand down his face. “No, no you don’t. You look cute.”

“Huh.”

Shaun kept on looking at him. Was he missing something? He felt like he was missing something. Maybe he was indeed very drunk.

Desmond sighed. He threw the blanket over him. “Lay on your side, okay. I’m going to bring you a bucket.”

“Why?”

“In case you puke.”

“Huh.” He turned to his side, hugging one of the cushions close.

Shaun didn’t hear if Desmond returned with a bucket or not but he did dream of him sitting beside his makeshift bed. But he was drunk. So very horribly drunk. He couldn’t really fault his brain.  
\--

Waking up was… Inadvisable.

His mouth tasted horrible. Shaun was barely able to open his eyes without the light glaring terribly. His head was heavy and his body refused to be moved. Hungover. Yes, he was.

“If you’re gonna puke, do it into the bucket.”

Shaun felt for his glasses. He couldn’t remember taking them off but well, they sure wasn’t on his face right now. “I’m not going to puke, ugh. How are you so chirp?”

“It’s four in the afternoon, Shaun.” Rebecca laughed. There is coffee in the pot, you look like tea won't cut it.”

Shaun glared in her general direction. She was already working on the Animus.

“Glasses on the coffee table.”

He grunted as thanks. He went to the kitchen and put the kettle on. Coffee pot, coffee table, coffee, coffee, coffee! He wanted tea, God damn it! He stumbled while turning around. Alrighty, maybe he was still drunk. Understandable.

He made his way upstairs to wash his face.

The tinkling sounds only started to make sense after the third time the cold water hit his face. Desmond was playing guitar. It was… Not what he’d have expected to hear Desmond playing.

To be fair, Shaun didn’t know what Desmond was playing. As much as he boasted about his general knowledge arsenal, he wasn’t a jazzy guy. Well, he didn’t really listen to jazz. Or blues. Who actually listened to jazz?!

Desmond apparently. 

Shaun leaned onto his hand, bending over the sink, water clinging to his stubble and listened. He looked at himself in the mirror. He looked horrible. Really, there was no other way of putting it. Staying locked up and constantly working was getting to him. He had rings under his eyes, his hair was getting a tad too long for his liking, he didn’t even have a proper shirt on.

He didn’t look like the kind of person jazz-listening guys fancied. 

Oh well, a little realistic self-deprecation was good for your soul first thing in the morning, right? Or afternoon. Whatever.

He made his way downstairs and made his tea. Pouring the last of the coffee in another mug, he went back upstairs and standing in front of Desmon’s door, did something very stupid. 

“I tried to knock with my head and now I have a migraine, let me in.”

Desmond indeed opened the door laughing. “Do you want me to shut up?”

“Ugh, no. Your room is too bright.” Shaun let himself in. “What are you playing and how much did you ruin your hand? Be honest.”

“I didn’t ruin my hand! My palm is almost completely healed.”

“Almost being the operative word. I brought you coffee.” He sat down onto the bed as Desmond did the same.

Desmond picked up the guitar, placed it on his crossed legs and took the coffee from him.

“Your arm was still pinkish when I last saw it.”

“Yeah, but that’s my arm. Palm is fine. How is your head?”

“Reminding me just how much I drank last night. What were you playing?” Shaun peeked into the open guitar case. There were some note sheets and some marked up papers with lines and numbers. And two square album cases.

“May I?”

“Yeah, sure.” Desmond pointed with his cup. “Wasn’t playing anything, actually. Just messing around.”

“Sounded good.” He picked up the dark blue album. “Huh! Your name sake.”

“Yeah. Paul Desmond.” He laughed, blew on his coffee. “I like the other one better though. I mean, I like both. Just before, well, everything happened I was trying to start my collection, but-” he pointed, “that one, Windflower, that’s my favorite.”

Shaun picked up the other album. Above the flowery, creamy cover it wrote: Herb Ellis & Remo Palmier – Windflower. “What is your favourite?”

“Hm?”

“Favourite song? Or well, are these pieces? Songs? Pieces?”

Desmond laughed, “Pieces. No words. It’s- Uh- It’s the third track.”

My Foolish Heart. Oh well, Shaun thought, yours or mine.

They sat there for a while. Desmond set the coffee on the side table and kept playing random tunes. Shaun drank his tea. They sure sat on the same bed for far too many times for Shaun to stay sane.

Desmond stopped playing and cleared his throat. “I think I’m still hooked up on the shit my dad used to say, you know?”

“Like what?” Shaun couldn’t really follow where this was coming from. “There is a lot of shit your father says.”

Desmond laughed, “Dad- He wanted us to be doing something always. To him, if you weren’t working, you were wasting time. And I did a lot of that once I ran away, wasting time, but-” He sighed, “I guess, seeing him again, I expected him to hound me like that, as if nothing had changed. Which he did, and then he bailed out. No offense.”

“No, no. He absolutely did bail out.” He waited. “But?”

Desmond sighed. “I was working on myself, you know. Like, back in New York, when I finally had this bartending thing to work out and I was finally making money, I was trying to teach myself things. Like shit we didn’t learn at The Farm that you normally learn in middle school but also things I just… Wanted. Like the guitar.” 

Shaun didn’t disrupt him when he stopped. He felt like this was something Desmond wanted to get off his chest but he also had no idea what had prompted it after days of cold-shoulder, basically. They hadn’t talked like this since the fateful day of Bawling Our Eyes Out. Shaun had tried to tell himself he could have done without it but he had missed it. He had missed Desmond. He didn’t want to ruin things again.

Desmond continued. “After breaking out of Abstergo, getting pulled back into the Brotherhood business and most of all, after seeing dad-” he sighed, “I think the old habits started coming back, you know. I expected- I don’t know, I expected dad to be on my bullshit all the time like he used to. I just- He always made me feel bad for not doing assassin stuff, even if it was something small like watching cartoons or reading comics, you know. So I-”

Shaun wondered if there was anyone that could take up the mantle if William Miles was to disappear under mysterious consequences. But in the end, this was both of them, wasn’t it. Desmond and him. Traumatized to the core, trying to overcompensate, failing miserably.

Desmond ran a hand over his face, then set the guitar to the side, “I just feel- I feel bad, you know. When I sit down and don’t do anything- I don’t know, assassin-ly.”

“Well, you do climb onto the roof sometimes. Inadvisably so.”

Desmond laughed but sobered quickly. “Shaun. I don’t know what I said to make you cry last week, I don’t- I just felt really useless and- I’m- I’m literally just some guy-”

“That- Can you imagine, if every time we thought we’d get a morsel of information, we abandoned a man, what the hell do you think would happen?” 

He had thought they had talked about this. Just last night. Hadn’t they talked about it last night about abandoning foolishly digging for more information on Abstergo. Even thinking of that left a bad taste in his mouth. After all, he had done that, years ago. It had lost him his everything.

“No. I- I’m not saying we should just abandon what we’re- Ugh- I’m trying to apologize.”

“You’re doing a piss-poor job of it.”

That made Desmond truly laugh. “I’m sorry! I’m just telling you- I’m telling you how I feel, you know. I just- I’m grateful that you’ve even tried to fix my brain. I went to actual neurologists Shaun and they were like, ‘Well, he’s just too fucked up I guess,’ but-” 

He gestured wildly at himself. “And it’s working. It’s really working and it’s such a thankless job, it’s not like my dad’s gonna realize I’m any better, he wouldn’t realize if I lost my wrong arm at this point. I- I just don’t understand why you’re doing it. I mean, I’m grateful, I-”

“Because I don’t want to lose you, you dumb tit. Do you think I do it for- What? William’s approval? He wouldn’t recognize a selfless act if it slapped him on the face. I don’t want to lose you! When I see you in pain, I feel bad. When I hear you screaming at night, I feel bad. I-”

“You don’t want to lose me?”

Oh dear. Well. Shit. That could have done with some paraphrasing. Shaun looked away. His head throbbed. He wished he had said that with a little less emotion behind it, a little more casually, so that Desmond wouldn’t get just how much he had meant it. But he had to open his big mouth and be honest. He took a sip of his tea. 

Desmond was still waiting for an actual answer.

“Yeah, well.” Eloquent. Beautiful. What a soulful admission!

Love was so embarrassing. He hoped that, at the very least, Desmond would let him down easy.

Desmond laughed. A hand snuck into his, taking his tea away. “You’re so stupid for a genius you know?”

Shaun’s hands shook, even when engulfed in Desmond’s. “No, I’m very intelligent, you’re just incredibly dense.”

“Very dense.”

Shaun refused to look his way. Surely, this wasn’t happening. Desmond had to pull him by his grasped hand to kiss him lightly. Very lightly. 

Shaun was surprised to discover that he could indeed feel the groove of the scar on his lips. He scooted forward to press against him a little bit more. His stomach felt weird. Not quite nerves, not really anything else. Surely, he was still in a deep sleep, seeing things aided by the copious amounts of vodka and gin he had consumed.

But Desmond felt very real. He tasted of coffee. When Shaun darted his tongue out to taste more of it, dipping it into the line of his scar, he moaned. His hands holding Shaun’s tightened. Very real.

They separated. Desmond put his good hand on Shaun’s cheek. Then he laughed. “This is ridiculous.”

“Indeed, very stupid.” It really was. Shaun felt like an idiot. Sitting so close to Desmond, everything felt so meaningless. Hiding, pushing him away. It all felt so very stupid and childish. “I mean, I thought I was very obvious.”

“You- Well, alright. You know, maybe for a British guy-”

Shaun poked him in his middle. “No, you’ll just have to accept that you’re very dense.”

“All I’m saying is, when people like each other-”

“Oh shush. You didn’t say anything either.”

Desmond sobered, “I- I didn’t actually expect this hideout thing to last this long. I also didn’t expect dad to just disappear. I thought he’d be putting me on an actual leash, you know. Take me wherever he went, in case I ran away again. I didn’t want to hope we’d actually stick together. But-” He ran his thumb over Shaun’s cheek. “Here we are.”

“Here we are indeed.” Shaun leaned against his hand. It made him feel weirdly embarrassed, hearing his own fears coming out of Desmond’s mouth. “Dense git.”

“Ugh, alright.” Desmond rolled his eyes fondly. “To make up for my intense denseness, I’m gonna make you heart shaped pancakes for Valentine’s day.”

“Sap.” Shaun grasped his t-shirt with his free hand and pulled him in.

Desmond gave him another short kiss, “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

Which could have been a much sweeter moment, only if someone had manners.

“I need to go to a hardware store. Do you want any- Oh my God!”

Desmond jumped, probably at the shrill scream which the likes of he had never heard from Rebecca before. Shaun buried his head on Desmond’s shoulder to hide his blush. Rebecca already was going to needle him with I told you so, she didn’t need more material.

“We don’t want anything.” He mumbled into Desmond’s shoulder.

“I’m going to get you condoms.” She slammed the door closed.

Desmond laughed, then he shouted, “We’re out of coffee.” His hand rested on Shaun’s back, doing little mindless circles.

A muted, “Got it,” came from down the hall. 

Shaun turned his head towards Desmond’s neck, taking in a breath. What was his life? He didn’t quite know but it wasn’t all that bad he guessed. It wasn’t all that bad indeed. He could take a couple secret organizations and apocalypses as long as he had this man around.

And it seemed like he was going to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may ask, "Arcade! WTF happened? Why so long!" To which I can only say, "My life was in shambles." 
> 
> It is true. My life is _always_ in shambles but this time it was a combined bundle of many shambles that made writing really hard. I will not get into detail because, well, you just read almost 6K, you need a break. But now life is less shambly and ficcing will resume. Hopefully, according to plan.
> 
> This chapter was really hard to write. Not only because the subject was hard; first Shaun's inner turmoils, then Desmond's but then again I needed to make them known without turning Shaun into a mind reader -but also because my own mental state was uncooperative. As I said, life in shambles. Does that to you.
> 
> But! Yay! Kisses!? (* ¯ ³¯ *) ♡
> 
> After this, I expect things to flow much more easily since my two main characters can speak openly and don't have to keep their emotions hidden, which in turn makes me run in circles, trying to write. I plan to write some happy smooching, is that too much? No it shouldn't be. (っ ˘з (˘⌣˘) 
> 
> And the Abstergo sub-plot? Well, you'll have to stick around and find out. (I have plans! Why are you looking at me like I don't have plans?! I always have plans!)

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/arcadeadvntures), talking about vidigames, fan-culture and how my head is absolutely not screwed on right.


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